Are you a trader looking for the best APIs to help you analyse the stock market?
In this article, we will discuss the best stock market APIs used for crucial analysis, what they can do, where you can find them, how to use them and how they can help you better navigate the markets systematically.
We will also discuss the types of APIs available and show you a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up and use the APIs for stock analysis.
What is a stock analysis API?
A stock analysis API is an application programming interface (API) used to perform analysis and track the stock market.
It provides access to financial data from various sources and allows you to quickly and easily retrieve data about prices, fundamental data, alternative data such as social media sentiment and market conditions.
Many of the APIs available today offer real-time and historical data, as well as access to news and financial reports and some of those you can use for free!
What types of stock analysis APIs are available for retrieving relevant information?
We are moving to the connected web, where most services are entirely built on APIs and offer APIs to access information in a structured way. Finance is obviously one key industry where the use of APIs has first taken hold due to the huge structured data requirements and the rise of algorithmic trading.
As a result, there is a plethora of stock market APIs available for free use, with varying data quality, call limits and response times. We will take a look at some of the most frequently used free and premium APIs by quants and algorithmic traders.
- Yahoo Finance API
- Alpha Vantage API
- RapidAPI
- StockGeist social sentiment API
- MarketXLS
- Quandl API
- Xignite
- Intrinrio
1. Yahoo Finance API
Yahoo Finance has long been the go-to website and data repository for most retail investors, dating back to the late 1990s when it was one of the first services widely integrated with various Excel plugins. Currently, there is no official API endpoint or documentation available anymore, but there are various projects and repositories available which would access the data directly via the web interface on the finance.yahoo.com website, such as yfinance.
The reason for its popularity is that Yahoo Finance offers an extensive range of data and insights on nearly any publicly traded company in the world. This includes quotes and historical prices, financials and fundamentals, options, dividends, earnings, analyst estimates, and more.
Website: https://finance.yahoo.com
Python wrapper: https://pypi.org/project/yfinance
RapidAPI wrapper:https://rapidapi.com/apidojo/api/yh-finance
2. Alpha Vintage API
The Alpha Vantage API is a powerful tool for investors and developers, providing access to financial data from multiple sources.
Using the API, users can quickly and easily access real-time and historical data on stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, commodities, and indices from both US and international markets.
The data includes quote and news data, market capitalization and dividend yields, technical indicators, charting tools, and macroeconomic indicators.
Alpha Vantage also provides an easy-to-use interface for developers, enabling them to quickly and easily integrate the data into their applications.
The API also enables users to quickly and easily access data from over 50 exchanges across the globe, including major international markets such as Euronext, NYSE, and NASDAQ.
Alpha Vantage has a free-to-use plan with most of its features available for a small number of API calls.
Website: https://alphavantage.co
API documentation: https://www.alphavantage.co/documentation/
RapidAPI wrapper:https://rapidapi.com/alphavantage/api/alpha-vantage/
3. RapidAPI – Any API From a Single Source
RapidAPI is an API Marketplace that provides access to over 500,000 APIs from one single source.
RapidAPI simplifies the API search and discovery process by providing a search bar similar to Google to easily search for the APIs they need. The platform also provides detailed API documentation to give users a better understanding of the specific API they are connecting to.
If a business connects its API to RapidAPI, the site provides detailed analytics and metrics to help the company better track API usage and performance. Additionally, RapidAPI provides support for multiple programming languages, such as Java, Python, and JavaScript, allowing users to access and use APIs in the language of their choice.
The main advantage is that RapidAPI makes it easier for businesses and developers to quickly find, use, and manage multiple APIs through a single endpoint, allowing them to quickly integrate multiple APIs with a single SDK into an application. Most APIs on RapidAPI are free to use for developers with a low call-volume.
Website: https://rapidapi.com/ API documentation: https://docs.rapidapi.com/
4. StockGeist – Social Sentiment API
At StockGeist, we have intuitively designed and built a market sentiment monitoring platform and are working on an API to make our data available programmatically. At the moment, we are still in product development, but you can already monitor social media sentiment on over 2,200 publicly traded companies through our dashboard for free.
You can find more information on our stock sentiment API as well as our ventures into a crypto sentiment API service.
Website:https://www.stockgeist.ai/ API documentation: docs.stockgeist.ai
Professional APIs
With many professional services available for stock market data APIs, we have focussed on the four most prominent providers for professional data from low budgets to institutional usage. Some additional providers are listed on a selection by Columbia University.
5. MarketXLS
MarketXLS is a low-cost option to access high-quality data on all listed U.S. stocks. They have a plugin for Google Sheets and a custom Excel plugin. The data download in Excel is relatively fast, while Google Sheets can take some time for bulk data download.
MarketXLS don’t provide an API; however, for stock analysis in excel, it is very comprehensive and affordable, starting at $56 per month.
Website: https://marketxls.com
API documentation: n/a
6. Quandl API (now Nasdaq Data Link)
Quandl used to be one of the premier sources for alternative data and has now been rebranded into “Nasdaq Data Link” after Nasdaq acquired Quandl in 2018.
The Nasdaq Data Link API offers a wide range of economic, financial and alternative data sets, including stock prices, energy commodity prices, insurance data, macroeconomic indicators, market sentiment indicators and more.
It also offers a wide range of alternative data sets, such as satellite imagery and social media sentiment. Their data sets span a variety of industries, sectors and countries, making it an ideal tool for professionals to gain insights in all areas.
Website: https://data.nasdaq.com
API Documentation: https://docs.data.nasdaq.com
7. Xignite
Xignite is an industry-leading financial market data provider offering cloud-based, real-time and historical financial market data APIs. The Xignite API enables financial organisations to quickly access reliable, accurate and real-time global financial market data in a format that is easy to integrate into their applications or services.
With the Xignite API, customers can save time, reduce development costs and gain access to the most accurate, up-to-date financial market information.
Website: https://www.xignite.com
API Documentation:https://www.xignite.com/developers
8. Intrinio
The Intrinio API is a suite of financial data services that allow applications to access real-time and historical financial information from over a million financial data points. The API is broken into several different categories, including stock market data, fundamentals, economic data, historical market data, pricing data, options, and news. Intrinio also offers a range of data feeds for developers.
Website: https://intrinio.com/
API Documentation: https://docs.intrinio.com/documentation/api_v2/getting_started
How to Use APIs for Stock Market Analysis?
Using APIs for stock market analysis is relatively straightforward once you’ve set up the connection to the API. One way of testing an API with a simple application before you write any code is Postman.
Fetching data for stock screening
In general, you need to call an endpoint of the API detailing the relevant stock symbols for the stocks you want to analyse.
Then you’ll need to select the type of analysis you want to perform and the data you want to retrieve. For example, you may want to retrieve recent stock prices or historical stock data.
These popular metrics can all be accessed via free APIs:
- Stock prices
- Trading volume
- Total market value
- Yield
Retrieving financial news in real-time
Many services include features such as financial news and stock alerts via APIs.Newsapi is the most prominent such service.
Depending on the specific requirements, the data can be presented in a number of different formats and called by a news outlet, topic or keyword.
Performing fundamental research
In addition to stock metrics, APIs can also be used to access secondary data sets related to the company, such as company fundamentals and financial ratios.
This can help provide a better understanding of the underlying financial performance of the company. Analyses such as financial statement analysis and economic/industry analysis can be performed to assess the strength of the company’s financial position and the industry in which it operates.
Creating algorithmic trading strategies via stock market APIs
Stock market APIs can also be used to streamline the trading process by enabling automated orders to buy or sell stocks.
This can be particularly useful for those using sophisticated technical analysis strategies; a large number of signals and parameters that go into technical analysis can be difficult to manage manually.
Automating the process can make it easier to keep track of signals and execute trades quickly when conditions are favourable.
A Step-by-step guide on how to set up and use stock analysis APIs
Step 1: Identify the APIs available for stock analysis. There are several third-party stock analysis APIs available, including Alpha Vantage, Intrinio, Quandl and Yahoo Finance. Research these providers to understand the features and functionality they offer, as well as their data sources and pricing.
Step 2: Choose an API: Once you have researched the available APIs, choose the one that best meets your needs and budget. Make sure the API supports the data sources, stock exchanges, and financial metrics you need to perform your analysis.
Step 3: Create an account: Once you have selected your API provider, create an account with them. This step may vary from provider to provider but typically involves setting up an account, selecting a payment method, and verifying your identity.
Step 4: Read the documentation: Some APIs give you access to documentation about the features and functions available with the API. This is important for understanding how to use the API to access and analyse data, as well as the expected data format.
Step 5: Review the endpoints: Before you start using the API, it is important to review the available endpoints and understand how they relate to the data you need. Endpoints provide a way to access specific types of data, such as stock quotes or company financials.
Step 6: Read the terms and limitations: Make sure you understand the terms and limitations associated with your API provider, such as data usage restrictions, software limitations, and permitted uses of the data.
Step 7: Get an API key: Most API providers will require you to get an API key or developer token. This is a unique identifier that helps the API provider track your usage and provide access to your account.
Step 8: Write your code: Once you have your API key, you are ready to start writing code to extract and analyze the data. This can be done in any programming language, such as Python, R, or Java.
Step 9: Test your Code: Once you have written your code to extract the data, it is important to test the code to make sure it works as expected. This can be done manually or using a testing framework.
Step 10: Monitor performance: Finally, you need to monitor the performance of your code. Make sure that your code is performing as expected and that you are not overusing the API, exceeding quotas or incurring costs.
