Jaime, sometimes it's easiest if you share your existing code, even if it fails. I'd be happy to help.

Hi Dan,

This is what I am trying to do, but I am getting an error. I am not accessing the date time object correctly. Can you help? This is all very new to me, so your help is appreciated.

# Put any initialization logic here.  The context object will be passed to  
# the other methods in your algorithm.  
import datetime  
import pytz  
import bisect  
import cmath  
import collections  
import functools  
import heapq  
import itertools  
import math  
import numpy  
import pandas  
import Queue  
import random  
import re  
import scipy  
import statsmodels  
import sklearn  
import time  
import zipline


def initialize(context):  
    #context.currTime=get_datetime()  
  context.SPY=sid(8554)


# Will be called on every trade event for the securities you specify.  
def handle_data(context, data):  
    day = 20  
    month =9  
    year = 2013  
    current_day = get_datetime()  
   if year == current_day.year and month == current_day.month and day == current_day.day:  #want to buy SPY on ex-dividend date for now.  
        order(context.SPY, 1000)  

Hello Jaime,

I got your code to run (see attached). Note that for minute data, the code will need some tweaking, but for daily data it is o.k.

Some tips:

• I suggest only importing modules that you need.
  
• The day/month/year values for trade execution can be stored in a context variable, using a suitable Python data structure (e.g. a list).
  
• The function get_datetime() returns type 'datetime.datetime' so if you put your dates into a datetime type, you should be able to make a direct comparison.
  
• You might consider using a Python membership operator (e.g. if current_day in context.days, where context.days is a list of datetime objects).

Grant