Web Scraping for Finance in 2024 with Top 10 Scrapers & Pricing

Financial and market research initiatives get the highest ROI from investing in web data.¹ So it is no surprise that the total spending on web scraping for investment purposes is expected to reach $2B by 2020. Web scraping provides numerous benefits for the financial sector as it automates the extraction and aggregation of financial data, facilitates equity search, and enables data-driven market predictions.

Top financial data scrapers of 2024

Vendors are ranked according to their average score, with the exception of the products of the article’s sponsors which are linked to sponsor websites.

* Proxy providers provide the infrastructure for web scraping. Scrapers typically provide web pages over an API. No-code scrapers can be used without API access.

** Pricing is for starter packages.

We filtered vendors based on these verifiable criteria:

• Number of employees: 5+ employees on LinkedIn
• Number of B2B customer reviews: 10+ reviews on review sites such as G2, Trustradius, and Capterra.
• Average rating: Above 4.0/5 on Capterra, G2 and Trustradius.

Why is web scraping important in finance?

The finance sector relies heavily on web scraping to optimize their investment strategies by:

• Analyzing the current status of the financial market
• Uncovering market changes and trends
• Monitoring national and global news which 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.

What kind of web data can be collected via web scrapers?

Web scrapers can collect:

• Financial industry data
• Stock market data
• Company data
• News data
• Alternative data

What are the use cases of web scraping in finance?

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 the data about a business or company in order to make a data-driven decision about investing in their shares. Web scrapers gather data about businesses and companies such as market prices, inventory data, clients’ portfolios, product data, product reviews, company news, etc. 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 a government), in order to predict their ability to pay back a debt, and predict the possibility of a debtor defaulting. Most public companies publish their financial data such as financial statements, size of the company, funding, revenue, tax liens, etc. Web scrapers can aggregate data about a business’ financial status from company online resources as well as online public records in order to calculate a data-driven credit rating score which is especially useful for institutional investors, banks, and asset managers.

Sponsored:

In the video below, you can see Bright Data’s data collector extension and how it can be used to collect company data form their public websites.

3. Venture capital funding

In 2018, it was estimated that ~10 billion web pages were scraped everyday for investment purposes, and that this number is expected to exceed 25 billion per day by the year 2022. 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 to track market trends, discover industry niches, and reveal investment opportunities.

4. Compliance

Government and news websites are a crucial resource for financial regulatory requirements and changes. Scraping government and news outlets (e.g. websites, social media accounts, telegram channels) enables financial institutions to keep track of regulations and policy changes to ensure compliance.

5. Market sentiment analysis

News about the financial market can be found on news websites, social media, blogs, and forums. Automating the extraction of relevant data using web scrapers provides businesses with constant updates about the general population’s sentiment about specific products or brands, and enables financial leaders to predict the success or failure of certain stocks or ETFs in the market.

Additionally, some web scrapers integrate IP 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.

What are the best web sources for financial data?

Each finance section may target a different source to extract data relevant to their purposes. However, for a general view of the financial market and investment opportunities, web scrapers can target the following websites:

For stock tracking:

• Google Finance
• Morningstar
• Nasdaq stock market
• Yahoo Finance

For market news:

• Bloomberg
• Investopedia
• Forbes
• Reuters
• Wall Street Journal

For more on web scraping

To explore web scraping applications and use cases in different industries, read our articles:

• Top 18 Web Scraper / Crawler Applications & Use Cases
• Guide to Web Scraping in e-Commerce: Use Cases & Challenges
• The Ultimate Guide to Web Scraping for Recruiters
• In-Depth Guide to Web Scraping for Machine Learning

And if you believe that your business will benefit from a web scraping solution, make sure to check our data-driven list of web crawlers.

Reach out to us to guide you through the process:

External Links

• 1. “Industry Survey on Web Scraping“. PromptCloud. Retrieved on April 11, 2024