Adj Close and DataSource

This documents shows questions asked about FE5108 project and my answer to the question. The questions are given in blue font and my responses are shown in green font

1. Where is the data source you suppose us to work on?
From our checking, the data you given in your excel template is different from those public available data:
FTSE ST ALL SHARE L - PRICE INDEX data is different from the http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=FSTAS.SI
Exchange rate is also slightly different.
Do you expect us to just use those public available data, or use some more private data?
Are we supposed to use school PC to access those data, if this is the case, can you post the instruction on the ivle to abstract those data from school PC?

2. Are the stock prices under " adj Close" in the web are the ones you mentioned about the monthly returns including dividends?
Or we need to adjust manually based on the stock price and dividend price data?

So long as the data for the market indices (FTSE All Shares and S&P 500) as well as the exchange rate, you should use the data posted on IVLE. The stock market indices data posted on the IVLE are so called “total return” index which includes dividend. This should explain the difference. Regarding the exchange rate, the difference has to do with place and time.
You are supposed to use stock price data adjusted for stock data and dividend when computing the return – this is why I have posted the templates for stock price and stock dividends. The stock price and stock dividends should be adjusted for stock split. My understanding is “adjusted close” (in yahoo finance) means adjusted for stock split but not for the dividends.
You can use any data source you have access to. That means, you can use Yahoo as data source or use Bloomberg terminals available in the lab.