Thanks, Fred.
I already use Quicken, and it's pretty good (not perfect), but I need the
spreadsheet to track a lot of other info; total income, xdiv date/pay date
for dividends etc.

I've been trying to find a way to ask MSN. They do have a look up symbol
that, for example, returns the format as cm.pr.d but that only gets the
correct name of the share ... but no other info. A newer format cm-d
sometimes gets the info but very sporadic. I've also tried cm-pd (Yahoo's
format) but it doesn't work in excel (likely pointing to wrong server).

Thanks to all for trying; I'm sure I'll get the right format or a different
solution somehow with all the talent and willingness to help out there.


"Fred Smith" wrote:

It depends on which price service MSN is using. Preferred shares, especially in
Canada, are notorious for having different symbols. It started with the TSX when
they added .pr to everything. Not everyone else followed suit.

You need to ask your price service (in this case MSN) for the proper symbol. It
has nothing to do with Excel.

My other suggestion is buy Quicken. It will download quotes and value your
portfolio so much more easily than Excel.

--
Regards,
Fred


"Dennis M" wrote in message
...
Does anyone know the correct "format" for the stock symbol to download stock
quotes for preferred shares from the Toronto Stock Exchange. Note that
getting quotes for common shares is fine; no problem.

Here's an example ...
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Preferred D is commonly listed as ...
cm.pr.d or cm-d.
The former gets me the name but no stock info. The latter "sometimes" gets
me the price, but most often will not. It is getting very frustrating to
manually update 20 stocks every day.

FWIW I'm using Excel 2007 and Vista Premium. Note that everything worked OK
until a few months ago, so I don't think it is an Excel or Vista problem. I
think I really just need to know the format for symbols for preferred shares.