While official financial data providers do offer APIs, these are often limited in scope, access, or flexibility especially for real-time or niche data needs. As a result, financial data scraping has become a common approach to collecting such information, typically using technologies like web scrapers, headless browsers, and HTML parsers.
This article explores the fundamentals of financial data scraping, including widely used tools and techniques, key challenges, and alternative data sources such as APIs.
Top financial data extraction tools
| Vendors | Datasets | Pre-made templates* | Scraper API type** | Starting price/mo | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | ✅ | ❌ | Dedicated (Yahoo) | $499 | 7 days |
| Decodo | ❌ | ❌ | General-purpose | $29 | 7 days |
| Oxylabs | ❌ | ❌ | General-purpose | $49 | 7 days |
| Nimble | ❌ | ❌ | General-purpose | $150 | 7 days |
| ParseHub | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | $189 | Free plan |
| Octoparse | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | $99 | 14 days |
| Scraper API | ❌ | ❌ | General-purpose | $49 | 7 days |
| Zyte | ✅ | ❌ | General-purpose | $100 | $5 credit |
- *Offers a no-code interface that makes the scraping process easier with a visual, point-and-click design.
- **There are specialized scraper APIs for specific sites, such as the Yahoo scraper API, as well as general-purpose APIs that work with any website.
What type of financial data can be collected via web scrapers?
Below are various types of data that can be extracted using scraping methods:
- Stock data (prices & historical data): Real-time or historical prices of companies listed on major stock exchanges like the NYSE and NASDAQ.
- Financial statements & SEC filings: Data from company financial statements (balance sheets, income statements, cash flow). SEC filing data provides information about a company’s financial health and plans.
- Company financials: Financial reports, including earnings statements, and key metrics such as earnings per share (EPS), revenue, and net profit.
- Financial news: Updates on mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructurings from financial news sources such as Bloomberg, Reuters, and CNBC.
- Cryptocurrency data: Real-time or historical price information for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, as well as data on initial coin offerings (ICOs) or token sales.
- Foreign exchange (Forex) data: Currency exchange rates for major pairs such as USD/EUR and USD/JPY, along with rates for less widely traded currencies.
- Alternative data: Web traffic statistics, supply chain insights, and geographic or spatial data.
What are the popular web sources for financial data?
Each finance section may target a different source to extract the desired data relevant to their purposes. However, for a general view of the financial market and investment opportunities, you can target the following financial websites:
- Stock market data: Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, Investing.com, Alpha Vantage, Finnhub
- Economic data (macroeconomic indicators & reports): Reuters, Bloomberg, Financial Times (FT), Investing.com
- Company financials (balance sheets, income statements): SEC EDGAR Database, Morningstar, Finnhub
- News and market sentiment: Bloomberg, Investopedia, Forbes, Wall Street Journal
- Commodities & futures: Investing.com, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Quandl
- Cryptocurrencies & forex: Alpha Vantage, Finnhub, Investing.com
Is scraping financial data legal?
Scraping public data is legal as long as it doesn’t violate a site’s terms of service, copyright laws, or privacy regulations. However, scraping data behind paywalls or using bots that harm a site’s infrastructure is generally considered illegal or unethical.
Are there alternatives to scraping?
Many finance data providers offer APIs, including:
- Yahoo Finance API (via RapidAPI): Offers free access and integrates with Python using libraries like yfinance.
- Alpha Vantage: Free with an API key (5 API calls per minute), with premium tiers available.
- IEX Cloud: Free tier with API key; premium plans available. Free tier is limited (500,000 messages/month).
- Bloomberg API (Paid): Enterprise use only, and licensing can be complex.
Why is web scraping important in finance?
The finance sector relies heavily on web scraping to optimize its investment strategies by:
- Analyzing the current status of the financial market
- Uncovering market changes and trends
- Monitoring national and global news that may affect stocks and economics
- Evaluating consumer sentiment and behavior.
Additionally, web scraping is the #1 source of alternative data, which is one of the most important sources of insights for asset managers about market trends and investment opportunities.
How to use scraped data in the finance industry
Web scraping tools automate the extraction of finance-related data from the web, which can be used for:
1. Equity research
Equity research is the process of aggregating and analyzing data about a business or company to make a data-driven decision about investing in its shares. Web scrapers gather data about industries and companies, such as market prices, inventory data, clients’ portfolios, product information, product reviews, and company news, to be used for analysis by an equity researcher.
2. Credit ratings
Credit rating is the process of evaluating the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, business, company, or government) to predict their ability to repay a debt and assess the likelihood of default. Most public companies publish their financial data, including financial statements, company size, funding, revenue, and tax liens. Web scrapers can aggregate data about a business’s financial statements from the company’s online resources, as well as online public records, to calculate a data-driven credit rating score. This is especially useful for institutional investors, banks, and asset managers.
3. Venture capital funding
Venture capitalists can leverage web scraping to create start-up lists and collect data about their funding from websites such as TechCrunch or CrunchBase. This data can be valuable for tracking market trends, discovering industry niches, and revealing investment opportunities.
4. Compliance
Government and news websites are a crucial resource for staying informed about financial regulatory requirements and changes. Scraping government and news outlets (e.g., websites, social media accounts, Telegram channels) enables financial institutions to track regulations and policy changes, ensuring compliance.
5. Market sentiment analysis
News about the financial market can be found on various news websites, social media platforms, blogs, and online forums. Automating the extraction of relevant data using web scrapers enables businesses to receive constant updates on the general population’s sentiment towards specific products or brands. It enables financial leaders to forecast the success or failure of specific stocks or ETFs in the market.
Additionally, most web scrapers integrate proxies to extract web data about specific geographical regions. This can be useful for businesses to analyze the financial market in a targeted region and optimize their financial strategies accordingly.
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