thanks for your help, but changing it specific to internet explorer doesnt work (and im using IE6) i have no clue why the code doesnt work, its doing something but getting an error, says there is an error with:
yet all this button does is call the text out of data.txt and put it in a div, maybe its where i put it in the code?
<input type="button" onclick = "getData('data.txt', 'targetDiv')">
yet again heres my updated code: i feel like giving up 
<html>
<head>
<title>Trading Currencies</title>
<script type="javascript">
<script language = "javascript">
var XMLHttpRequestObject = false;
XMLHttpRequestObject = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
function getData(dataSource, divID)
{
if(XMLHttpRequestObject) {
var obj = document.getElementById(divID);
XMLHttpRequestObject.open("GET", dataSource);
XMLHttpRequestObject.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if (XMLHttpRequestObject.readyState == 4 &&
XMLHttpRequestObject.status == 200) {
obj.innerHTML = XMLHttpRequestObject.responseText;
}
}
XMLHttpRequestObject.send(null);
}
}
<form id="my form">
</script>
<input type="button" onclick = "getData('data.txt', 'targetDiv')">
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
function onLoad()
{
var d = (new Date() + "").split(" ");
document.getElementById('tradeDate').value = d[0]+" "+d[1]+" "+d[2]+" "+d[5];
with(new Date){
dateStr = [getDate(),getMonth()+1,getFullYear()].join('/');
document.getElementById('tradeDate').value = dateStr;
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload= "onLoad()">
<center><h1><u>Trade Buying and Selling Transaction</u></h1></center>
<form name="myForm">
<br>
</font>
<font="Arial" color="white">
<table border="1" align="center">
<td><th>Trade Date: <input id="tradeDate" name="tradeDate" type="text" value=""></th></td>
<td><th>Returning Users: <input type="text" name="user" id="return"><br></th></td>
<td><th>Trade Reference: <input type="text" name="trade" id="trade"></th></td>
</table>
</font>
<br>
<br>
<table border="1" align="center">
<tr>
<td><th>Buy Currency Code:<input type="text" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value = this.value.toUpperCase();"></th></td>
<td>
<div id="targetDiv">
<p>The fetched data will go here.</p>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><th>Sell Currency Code:  <input type="text" name="sellcode" id="sellcode" maxlength=3 onkeyup="this.value = this.value.toUpperCase();"></th></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<table border="1" align="center">
<td><th>Exchange Rate:       <input type="text" name="xrate" id="xrate"></th></td>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<table border="1" align="center">
<tr>
<td><th>Buy Value:               <input type="text" name="buyval" id="buyval"></th></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><th>Sell Value:                <input type"text" name="sellval" id="sellval" maxlength=3></th></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<table border="1" align="center">
<tr>
<td><th>Customer Code:</th></td>
<td><th>Settlement:</th></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><th><input type"text" name="code" id="code"></th></td>
<td><th><input type"text" name="settlement" id="settlement"></th></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
<table border="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td><input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" align="center"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>
Thanks for helping so far though mate, really appreciate it:o