I agree - professional traders need professional tools. Most...

I agree - professional traders need professional tools. Most people I know think that their time is worth at least $30 per hour. If you have to spend more than an hour each month messing around with your stock database then maybe it's worthwhile considering a tax deductible subscription to a data vendor.

You'll also be amazed at the breadth of features that the data vendors have in their products these days including:

(a) Organising trading instruments by type (equities, indices, etos,warrants, interest-bearing)
(b) organising by index participation (S&P ASX 50/100/200/300, All Ords, by individual sectors, by individual sectors of each index, short sellable securities etc.)
(c) maintenance of delisted stock history (good for backtesting)
(d) full adjustment of data for splits, consolidations, renames, merging of deferred settlement securities into the parent code.

Some people just don't need all of the above and a cheap/free data vendor might suffice.

But, if you're keen on testing different trading strategies, back-testing in any way, or just don't want to worry about whether your data is accurate, go with a reputable data vendor.

You usually get what you pay for with data vendors and it's worthwhile seeing what's out there. Many vendors allow a free trial of their products so you can try-before-you-buy.