Last Updated on December 21, 2023 at 8:50 pm
This is a list of free data sources that can be used for DIY investing and analysis. It is the culmination of years of searching – the fun and frustration of hunting for reliable information online far exceed that of using a readymade list, but it might hasten better analysis. So here we go. This is not an exhaustive list.
I have noticed that many readers are hesitant to ask me for these data sources. There is nothing secretive about them, and diligent Googling would reveal all. What you do with them later makes all the difference 😉 . We shall confine ourselves to free sources (at the time of writing).
- Historical price data of BSE indices, index ratios (PE, PB, DY), stock price history and a whole lot of other information can be found here: https://www.bseindia.com/market_data.html Please have the patience to scroll down and investigate each section. Total returns index information is not available here.
- BSE indices total returns data plus data on any S&P index worldwide can be obtained here: https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-bse-sensex/ You can add multiple indices to the chart and download them together. Please note the data is normalized for the last 10Y (max). You will not get absolute TRI values but only data rebased to a date 10Y ago. I use paid sources to get absolute Sensex TRI data.
- NSE offers price, total returns and index ratios all at the same place (use the selector above the dates), and their new site allows you to download these from inception in one go: https://www.niftyindices.com/reports/historical-data
- S&P 500 Total Returns can be obtained from Jan 1988 at Yahoo Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ESP500TR/history.
- Prof Schiller provides monthly data (inflation-adjusted S&P TR data, but this can easily be changed to unadjusted TR data) from the 1870s! Excel will be able to handle dates from 1900: http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm
- Limited data can also be found at https://ycharts.com/indicators/sp_500_monthly_total_return
- Nasdaq 100 Total Returns from https://in.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-100-tr-historical-data. Google Finance has this data too. You can retrieve it on a Google sheet via
- =GOOGLEFINANCE(“XNDX”, “price”, “01/11/2006”, “9/07/2021”, “DAILY”)
- Historical data of a wide duration of Indian govt bond yields can be found here: https://in.investing.com/rates-bonds/india-government-bonds. Click on the individual bonds and use the historical data tab.
- Gold price from 1978 in USD, INR and other currencies: https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-prices Free registration is required for download.
- USD to INR exchange rate from 1978. The gold data in INR and USD can be used to obtain this.
- Mutual fund NAV. For historical data (from April 3rd 2006), you can either use https://www.mfapi.in/ or get it via AMFI using Excel. See how the macros work in Automated Mutual Fund Performance Tracker. For daily NAV updates, you can either use Excel to get it from AMFI or via Google Finance. See, for example, Google spreadsheet portfolio tracker for stocks and mutual funds.
- Stock and ETF price history from moneycontrol: https://www.moneycontrol.com/stocks/histstock.php. From what I was informed earlier, the close price is adjusted for bonuses and stock splits but not for dividends. If you choose Yahoo Finance, the close price is adjusted for dividends and splits, but not for bonuses!
- Charts today are often interactive. That is, they are run with a script. You may be able to get this data from the XHR section of the Network tab in your browser console (inspect or ctrl + shift + I in Chrome). However, the legality of this will depend on the term and conditions of usage of each particular site. So do check that before proceeding!
- Data handled by scripts are often in JSON format. You can easily convert this CSV format with this site https://data.page/json/csv. It operates on a freemium model.
- All sorts of macro-economic indicators can be found at the RBI’s database on the Indian economy: https://dbie.rbi.org.in/DBIE/dbie.rbi?site=home
- Worldwide economic information is available at https://tradingeconomics.com/ Only a limited dataset is free though.
- https://www.ishares.com/ is a place to get international index and fund NAV data.
If you can add more data sources do send an email to freefincal [at] Gmail [dot] com or you can tweet to @freefincal or @pattufreefincal