Years ago, if you wanted to get the latest stock data directly, you could tap into Google Finance and Yahoo Finance APIs either on your own or through a third-party application. Today, both Google and Yahoo have discontinued their developer-facing finance APIs, although the data is still available on the web through a traditional website.
Although the stock data is still available on the web, that’s not always convenient. Sometimes you need real-time stock data on the go from an app on your mobile phone.
While additional stock APIs have been around for a while, Alpha Vantage provides a high level of accuracy and reliability you won’t find anywhere else. Alpha Vantage created a market data service that provides real-time and historical stock data. If you haven’t tried it yet, here are 7 reasons to take it for a spin.
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Alpha Vantage is both a premium (paid) and free service
Using the Alpha Vantage stock API won’t cost you a dime. However, free plans are limited to 5 requests per minute and cap out at 500 requests per day. Premium plans are available if you need to make more requests.
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You’ll get Forex (FX) and cryptocurrency data feeds
While the price of Bitcoin didn’t remain at its all-time high of $19,783.06 in December 2017, it has remained in the thousands. As of June 2020, Bitcoin is valued at $9,325. That’s still a huge advantage compared to other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, which is valued at a couple hundred bucks.
If you want to invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other cryptocurrencies, this data is critical to success. If cryptocurrency seems too volatile, you could invest in companies related to cryptocurrency that are likely to remain in operation if the crypto market collapses. Investopedia published a list of 4 such corporations.
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You’ll get 50+ technical indicators
Making the right choices depends heavily on technical analysis. Thankfully, this is an area covered by Alpha Vantage.
Through the Alpha Vantage stock API, you’ll get more than 50 technical indicators to help you analyze how supply and demand affect a stock’s price, volume, and implied volatility. You simply can’t accurately value a stock without technical indicators.
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You’ll get historical data
Included in the historical data are daily, weekly, and monthly histories for global markets dating back 20 years. Cryptocurrency data obviously won’t go back 20 years, but Algo Trading found that daily price data for Bitcoin goes back to 2011.
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You’ll get adjusted close prices
To account for splits and dividends, Alpha Vantage provides adjusted close prices. This is a small yet significant feature. The best part is this feature is available with all free accounts.
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Alpha Vantage Stock API is easy to implement
Setting up Alpha Vantage is easy. Once you claim your API key, Alpha Vantage can be set up with a variety of programming languages. If you’re not a programmer, you can hire anyone proficient in a programming language like JavaScript or Python to implement the API in whatever way you wish.
Alpha Vantage comes with an extensive library utilizing panda’s integration to simplify chart plotting.
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There are more than 200 GitHub Alpha Vantage repositories available
To date, there are more than 200 repositories on GitHub that build off of Alpha Vantage. If you’re not familiar with GitHub repositories, they’re basically collections of software packages that help developers build projects faster and better. GitHub stores code from a variety of individuals who have already done the work and want to make their code available to the public.
When you work with Alpha Vantage, be sure to give your programmers access to the GitHub repositories for the best results.
Try Alpha Vantage for free
You can skip straight to a premium plan, or you can try Alpha Vantage for free to get an idea of what this stock API has to offer. Either way, if you miss the old Google and Yahoo stock APIs, you’ll be pleasantly pleased with this alternative.
Interesting related article: “What is Finance?”