I have a Web application that needs to display up to date information on REITs and tickers like AX.UN, BEI.UN, CAR.UN etc..
For example, I need to automate consumption of information on pages such as http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AX-UN.TO
Are there rss feeds or apis I can use to import this kind of data? I don't want to copy and paste this information into my website on a daily basis.
On the very site you link to, there's a small link that says "download data". If you have a database with the symbols you want to track, it would be pretty easy to construct that download URL on the fly, query it, parse the CSV, and load that data into your database for display on your website.
ETA: Here's the link:
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=AX-UN.TO&f=sl1d1t1c1ohgv&e=.csv
Just have your program replace the "AX-UN.TO" with whatever symbol you want, and it should grab the data for that symbol.
Take a look at http://www.mergent.com/servius - particularly the Historical Securities Data API. Not sure if it has REIT data - if it doesn't, it may be available by special arrangement from them.