All requests begin with a base url of http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv and have arguments added onto the end.
The name of the requested stock is added through ?s=%40%5Eindex,stock. eg. ?s=%40%5EDJI,GOOG for Google stock.
You then need to choose the data to request. This is done by appending a &f= followed by the different arguments. The list of arguments is available at the bottom of this file.
There are a huge number of data pieces you can download. Many of these were ambigous in the original documentation, and I haven't figured out exactly what they refer to e.g. the difference between ask and ask (realtime), so I've left them how they appear in the original docs.
These can be concatenated eg. if you wanted to download the ask, bid and change in percent you would use &f=abp2
According to the Yahoo general API documentation, usage is capped at 2,000 requests/hour. This doesn't seem to apply to the finance API however, as I've performed 8,000 requests in 15 minutes before returning HTTP error 999. No true figure is known.
http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=%40%5EFTSE,ARM.L&f=sl1vop
This will return the stock ticker, current price, volume, opening price and closing price for the stock FTSE ARM.L
| Argument | Meaning |
|---|---|
| a | Ask |
| y | Dividend Yield |
| b | Bid |
| d | Dividend per Share |
| b2 | Ask (Realtime) |
| r1 | Dividend Pay Date |
| b3 | Bid (Realtime) |
| q | Ex-Dividend Date |
| p | Previous Close |
| o | Open |
| c1 | Change |
| d1 | Last Trade Date |
| c | Change & Percent Change |
| d2 | Trade Date |
| c6 | Change (Realtime) |
| t1 | Last Trade Time |
| k2 | Change Percent (Realtime) |
| p2 | Change in Percent |
| c8 | After Hours Change (Realtime) |
| m5 | Change From 200 Day Moving Average |
| c3 | Commission |
| m6 | Percent Change From 200 Day Moving Average |
| g | Day's Low |
| m7 | Change From 50 Day Moving Average |
| h | Day's High |
| m8 | Percent Change From 50 Day Moving Average |
| k1 | Last Trade (Realtime) With Time |
| m3 | 50 Day Moving Average |
| l | Last Trade (With Time) |
| m4 | 200 Day Moving Average |
| l1 | Last Trade (Price Only) |
| t8 | 1 yr Target Price |
| w1 | Day's Value Change |
| g1 | Holdings Gain Percent |
| w4 | Day's Value Change (Realtime) |
| g3 | Annualized Gain |
| p1 | Price Paid |
| g4 | Holdings Gain |
| m | Day's Range |
| g5 | Holdings Gain Percent (Realtime) |
| m2 | Day's Range (Realtime) |
| g6 | Holdings Gain (Realtime) |
| k | 52 Week High |
| v | More Info |
| j | 52 week Low |
| j1 | Market Capitalization |
| j5 | Change From 52 Week Low |
| j3 | Market Cap (Realtime) |
| k4 | Change From 52 week High |
| f6 | Float Shares |
| j6 | Percent Change From 52 week Low |
| n | Name |
| k5 | Percent Change From 52 week High |
| n4 | Notes |
| w | 52 week Range |
| s | Symbol |
| s1 | Shares Owned |
| x | Stock Exchange |
| j2 | Shares Outstanding |
| v | Volume |
| a5 | Ask Size |
| b6 | Bid Size |
| k3 | Last Trade Size |
| t7 | Ticker Trend |
| a2 | Average Daily Volume |
| t6 | Trade Links |
| i5 | Order Book (Realtime) |
| l2 | High Limit |
| e | Earnings per Share |
| l3 | Low Limit |
| e7 | EPS Estimate Current Year |
| v1 | Holdings Value |
| e8 | EPS Estimate Next Year |
| v7 | Holdings Value (Realtime) |
| e9 | EPS Estimate Next Quarter |
| s6 | Revenue |
| b4 | Book Value |
| j4 | EBITDA |
| p5 | Price / Sales |
| p6 | Price / Book |
| r | P/E Ratio |
| r2 | P/E Ratio (Realtime) |
| r5 | PEG Ratio |
| r6 | Price / EPS Estimate Current Year |
| r7 | Price / EPS Estimate Next Year |
| s7 | Short Ratio |