Does anyone know of a data feed that is just the data accessible over the net? I have looked around and a lot of them offer their own software that will grab the data, and then perform some limited range of functions on it. Then there are options like QuoteTracker that does that, but allows you to select a range of data feeds for it. Is there anything out there that will let me poll it - a url, or a port on a server - and then it will return data in either ascii or xml, or even a Java serialized object would work - but I would prefer to avoid that. The reason I ask is twofold: 1) I want to write my own code to analyze it, I don't necessarily like the way other places do it - so a built in tool isn't what I necessarily want 2) I am on a Mac, and all of the tools are geared towards the Windows crowd. There are a few Java things - but not in the way that I want and also Java performance (through a web browser) on the Mac is currently not that great. I have Windows machines as well, but I prefer my PowerBook. I can program anything that I need at this point, I just need the data. I had/have a subscription to www.stockwatch.com and it is okay (server crashes about once a day or at least disappears and gives an error for a few minutes when you hit the site), but they have now told me that if I want to get the data from an interface that isn't their web page, I am then limited to only 150 reloads for the day even though I am allowed unlimited reloads from the webpage. That means that they would prefer that I download all of the extra text and images from them instead of just the data. They don't have any ad content, so I'm really baffled as to why they want the additional load on their servers. I have looked at a few of the data feeds, but I thought I should ask here in case this is something that is a lost cause, or if there is a definite one that is very good.
Have you looked at http://www.iqfeed.net/ ? They have a developer's program too. Fees aren't too bad.
You can also use eSignal, Mytrack or Quote.Com to write your own software. You can get acces to their servers.
Thanks - I did look at all of those and had written some off since their developer support is only COM based. IQFeed is something I only glanced at, I will look more closely - and also go back to look at the other sites like Quote.com again to see if I missed anything. Thanks!
Quote.com is very expensive. They show no real interest in supporting developers. ($199 + $79 (rt feed) + one time charge $299) MyTrack and E-Signal are far better choices. They are cheaper and both feeds are rock-solid. Realtick was the best feed of all for a long time, they had quite a bit of a problem recently. But I think it is already getting better.
MyTrack requires a trading account with them to get access to their data services (something new) eSignal is not as cheap as MyTrack or IQFeed..... (But you get what you pay for)
I know, but you can also pay $99 for the SDK instead of $25. It is not cheap, but still a reasonable offer IMO, far better than quote.