Nasdaq Data Link offers a simple API for stock market data downloads. Our daily data feeds deliver end-of-day prices, historical stock fundamental data, harmonized fundamentals, financial ratios, indexes, options and volatility, earnings estimates, analyst ratings, investor sentiment and more. This post describes how our stock market data is organized and explains how to access it.
Data Organization: Time-series vs. Tables
Nasdaq Data Link’s data products come in many forms and contain various objects, including time-series and tables. Through our APIs and various tools (R, Python, Excel, etc.), users can access/call the premium data to which they have subscribed. (Our free data can be accessed by anyone who has registered for an API key.)
As a data platform, we take great pains to consider the best way to format our different data products. Currently, most of our data is accessible in either time-series format or table format. A few of our databases, however, are accessible in both formats. Consequently, it is important to understand the differences and overlaps between the two.
Time-series API
A time-series is a collection of observations or measurements taken over a period of time, generally in equal intervals. Time-series only contain numeric data types and are indexed by one date field. In other words, time-series data are always sortable by date. Through our API calls, users can retrieve the entire time-series or any slice of it.
Many of Nasdaq Data Link databases are stored as time-series because financial data generally consists of two types: dates and observations, which perfectly fit the time-series format.
Stock Price API Call (Time-series)
Accessing data on the Nasdaq Data Link platform is incredibly simple. Here is an example API call for AAPL stock prices:
https://data.nasdaq.com/api/v3/datasets/EOD/AAPL.csv?api_key=YOURAPIKEY
The above call gets all AAPL stock prices, sorted in descending date order, in CSV format.
For the full time-series syntax, consult our API documentation.
Tables API
While time-series only contain sorted numeric values, tables can include various unsorted data types (strings, numbers, dates, etc.) and can be filtered by different fields. Through our interface, users can retrieve the entire table or any portion of it.
Stock Fundamentals API Call (Table)
Here is an example API call for AAPL revenue:
The above call returns the net quarterly sales revenue for AAPL, in CSV format.
For the full tables syntax, consult our API documentation.
Below is a sampling of Nasdaq Data Link’s stock data products:
Databases
US Stock Prices
End of Day US Stock Prices – Current and historical, dividends, splits, adjustments, updated daily
US Stock Fundamentals and Financial Ratios
Zacks Fundamentals A (90+ Indicators) – 17,000+ companies, with history that dates back to 1979, updated daily
Zacks Fundamentals B (200+ Indicators) – 17,000+ companies, with history that dates back to 1979, updated daily
Zacks Fundamentals C (600+ Indicators) – 17,000+ companies, with history that dates back to 1979, updated daily
Core US Fundamentals (150+ Indicators) – 14,000+ companies, with history that dates back to 1997, updated daily
US Stock Options and Volatility
Option Volatility Surfaces – Tick-based volatility surfaces for U.S. equity options
US Equity Historical & Option Implied Volatilities – Range-based volatility surfaces for US equity options
Global Stock Data
Mergent Global Fundamentals Data – Updated daily, this database contains 50+ fundamental indicators, including derived margins and ratios, for 11,000+ companies in 67 countries as covered by the Russell Global Index. History from 2005.
Robur Global Fundamentals Data – Updated daily, this database provides up to six years of history for 75+ essential fundamental indicators and financial ratios for 7,800+ companies worldwide.
Analyst Ratings and Forecasts
Zacks Analyst Recommendations – Current analyst target prices and buy/sell/hold ratings
Zacks Analyst Rating History – Historical analyst ratings for 20,000+ US and Canadian companies
Zacks Target Price History – Target price estimates for 13,000+ US and Canadian companies
Zacks Long Term Growth History – Consensus growth forecasts and history for 5,000+ US stocks
Active Analyst Ratings – Crowdsourced stock ratings and recommendations, 6,000+ US companies
Earnings Estimates, Surprises and History
Zacks Earnings Estimates – Standardized earnings estimates for 5,000+ stocks
Zacks Consensus Earnings Estimates History – Consensus earnings estimates history, 22,000+ US and Canadian companies
Zacks Earnings Trends – Trends on consensus earnings estimates, 5,000+ US and Canadian stocks
Zacks Earnings Announcements – Predicted earnings announcement dates, 7,000+ stocks
Zacks Earnings Surprises – Historical estimated and earnings for 16,000+ US and Canadian stocks
Zacks Street Earnings Estimates – Consensus street earnings estimates, 5,000+ US and Canadian stocks
Zacks Street Earnings Surprises – Historical estimated and street earnings for 9,000+ US and Canadian companies
Sales Estimates
Zacks Sales Estimates – Standardized sales estimates for 4,000+ stocks
Zacks Sales Estimates History – Consensus sales estimates history, 13,000+ stocks
Zacks Sales Surprises – Sales surprises history for 17,000+ US and Canadian stocks
Earnings and sales estimates are based on Zacks Investment Research daily surveys of 2,600 equity analysts from over 185 brokerage firms.
Investor Sentiment
Web News Sentiment – Daily news sentiment indicators for 45,000+ stocks since 2013
Unicorn Research Corporation – Advance and decline data for the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ stock exchanges.
Corporate Actions
Zacks Dividends – Dividend history and announcements for 10,000+ US and Canadian stocks
EventVestor Corporate Buybacks – Stock buyback announcements, 4,000+ US listed stocks, history to 2007.
Technical Indicators
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority – Short interest data on securities firms and exchange markets
PortfolioEffect Volatility and Risk Factors – Volatility and other risk factors for 9,200+ financial instruments: stocks, indices and ETFs
In Depth: Stock Price API
Selected stock price databases are described in greater depth. Note that the definitive documentation for any given database can be found on its documentation page.
End-of-Day US Stock Prices
For US stock prices, we recommend the Quotemedia End-of-Day US Stock Prices database (EOD). This database provides comprehensive, accurate, reliable end-of-day stock prices, both adjusted and unadjusted, including complete dividend and split history. EOD covers over 10,500 public companies, including every stock listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX and ARCA. This database is updated daily.
Single user, startup and institutional licenses are available.
In Depth: Stock Fundamentals API
In the following sections, individual stock fundamentals databases are described in greater depth. Note that the definitive documentation for any given database can be found on its documentation page.
Core US Fundamentals Data
For basic US stock fundamentals, we recommend the SF1 Core US Fundamentals database. This database offers 150 essential fundamental indicators and financial ratios for 14,000+ public companies, both point-in-time and revised data, annual and quarterly variants, with 15 years of history.
In addition to parsing raw SEC filing documents, the data provider has invested thousands of hours into harmonizing the reported data across companies and across time — a huge and extremely intricate process. The database is highly accurate, carefully error-checked and updated every single day.
Zacks Fundamentals Collection
Zacks Investment Research has created three excellent and comprehensive databases for fundamental data and financial ratios: ZFA, ZFB and ZFC. These three databases cover 90, 200 and 600 key statistics, respectively, for each of 17,000 stocks, including delisted tickers. The presence of delisted stock fundamentals allows back-testing without survivorship bias. Note that ZFA and ZFB are subsets of ZFC.
All three databases are updated daily and build upon Zacks Investment Research’s 35+ years of expertise building professional-grade data products for sale. Since 1981, Zacks has been evaluating, organizing and processing research produced by U.S. and Canadian brokerage firms to generate estimates for earnings, sales, long-term growth rates and target prices, along with buy/hold/sell ratings. Based in Chicago, Zacks receives daily electronic data feeds and printed research reports produced by more than 2,600 analysts from over 185 US and Canadian brokerage firms, amounting to over 500,000 pages of brokerage research.
Terms and Licensing
The Nasdaq Data Link API is free for registered users. You can find our rate limits here.
Premium databases are governed by their respective subscription licenses. We strive to offer the most liberal, flexible, transparent and fair data licenses in the world. Individual, startup, developer and institutional licenses are available.
With an API key, you can preview all premium databases before buying.
Additional Resources
You might find these pages helpful:
Nasdaq Data Link API Documentation
Nasdaq Data Link Data Analysis Tools: R, Python, Excel and 20 more
List of all Nasdaq Data Link’s premium databases on Nasdaq Data Link.
To find the data you need, try our data browser/search, which are equipped with flexible filters — a feature that is tightly integrated with the keyword search functionality.
