A frequent corporate intranet requirement is to show a stock ticker value some where in the master page, or home page.  Doing this using free services is a bit of a challenge, and the ideal scenario is to periodically cache the value into the site, where it can then be easily used without generating a large amount of traffic to the stock value provider.

Yahoo provides a stock service that given the proper URL, with return a comma delimited text result.

For example, try this URL:

http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=msft&f=l1c1

The ticker symbol, MSFT is self explanatory.  The "l1c1" code says that we want two bits of information:

• "l1" which is the last sell price
• "c1" which is the last change value.

Here is a table of available codes for the Yahoo stock data.  You can also put multiple symbols in the URL.

To use these values in SharePoint, I've built a custom feature and timer job, which combined with a list in the root of your site, downloads updated stock values for your symbols every 5 minutes.  You configure which symbols to download information for by adding them to your list.

Once you have the data safely in your list, you can show it on any page using a simple data view, or ideally a simple ajax call using jQuery against the lists.asmx web service to save your end-users some load-time.

The Solution

First let's look briefly at how the solution works, then we'll discuss how to install it, and provide all the downloads at the bottom of the post.

The solution is very simple, with a code file for the timer job, and a code file for the feature receiver, which will install our timer job when the feature is activated.

I started with Andrew Connell's Timer Job code, so the solution will build directly to a WSP from Visual Studio using the custom build targets.  You can also read there about how the feature activation installs the job.  I've changed this very little.

The actual stock data is downloaded with a trivial function leveraging the System.Net.WebClient as follows:

    private string[] StockData(string ticker)
    {
        System.Net.WebClient client = new WebClient();
        string csv = client.DownloadString(

               string.Format("http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s={0}&f=l1c1",ticker));

        client.Dispose();
        return csv.Split(',');
    }

And here is the (somewhat rough) execute function that runs every 5 minutes to update your list:

    public override void Execute (Guid contentDbId) 
    {
      // get a reference to the current site collection's content database
      SPWebApplication webApplication = this.WebApplication;
      SPContentDatabase contentDb = webApplication.ContentDatabases[contentDbId];

      
      if (contentDb.Sites.Count > 0)
      {
          try
          {
              SPList stockList = contentDb.Sites[0].RootWeb.Lists["StockValue"];

              if(stockList!=null)
              {
                  contentDb.Sites[0].RootWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
                  
                  foreach (SPItem item in stockList.Items)
                  {
                      if (item.Fields.ContainsField("Symbol") && 

                          item.Fields.ContainsField("Value") && item.Fields.ContainsField("Change"))
                      {
                          string[] data = StockData(item["Symbol"].ToString());
                          item["Value"] = data[0];
                          item["Change"] = data[1];
                          item.Update();
                          
                      } 
                  }
                  contentDb.Sites[0].RootWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
              }
          }
          catch 
          { 
              //You should consider adding logging
          }
      }
    }

Notice the way we get our list using the content DB, your mileage may vary.  Logging would also be a nice addition.

Install

In addition to the solution, I've provided a WSP for those that would like to simply install this.  Here is how you would use it:

Step 1:

Create a new list in the root of your site, called "StockValue"

Step 2:

Add columns to the list.  All strings.  "Symbol", "Value", and "Change".

"Single Line of Text" is the type for all three, everything else left as default.

Your list should look like this:

Step 3:

Add your ticker symbols to the list, by creating a new row and populating the Symbol field.  You can optionally populate the Title field.  You can add 1 or as many as you would like.

Step 4:

Install the solution.  The WSP (SharePoint Solution) is available for download at the bottom of the post.  You will install this as you would any other WSP.  From a server on the farm use STSADM to add and deploy.

C:\>stsadm -o addsolution -filename c:\stefangordon.stockvaluejob.wsp

C:\>stsadm -o deploysolution -name stefangordon.stockvaluejob.wsp 

               -immediate -allowgacdeployment

Give the farm a minute or two to deploy the solution.

Step 5:

Active the feature in your site collection, from Site Settings->Site Collection Features

This would be the site which has the list from step 2 in it, at the root, called "StockValue".

Step 6:

Wait 5 minutes, for the job to run and update your list.  It should then contain the stock values.  If it is after-hours, the change amount will always be 0.

You can go check the status of the job in Central Admin, to see if it has run:

Downloads

Download the Visual Studio 2008 solution.

Download the compiled WSP.