TASK PATH
Financial Data Selection: From Research Question to Validated Dataset
Start with the decision you need to support: a price chart, an explanation of a company result, or an event brief. These require different evidence. This guide connects existing selection guides to a small validation workflow; it does not rank every provider or promise free real-time access.
Choose your next step
Compare quote and price sources
Start here when choosing a source. Fix the exchange, instrument identifiers, currency, delay tolerance and redistribution needs before comparing quotas.
Validate a daily price series
For a chart or backtest, inspect trading dates, timezone, split/dividend adjustment and missing sessions. A recent quote alone cannot validate a historical series.
Explain a company result
Use statements for revenue and balance-sheet questions. Keep filing date, reporting period, units and restatements separate from price timestamps.
Build a source-linked event brief
Use news when the task is what changed and when. Deduplicate stories, retain publisher links and distinguish publication time from event time.
Inspect the available services
- Alpha Vantage
Inspect the current tool list for a price or indicator workload; the listing does not establish entitlement, freshness or a successful call.
- Financial Modeling Prep
Inspect available statement fields against the reporting-period and units requirements of your company-research task.
Define a verifiable first result
Write a one-symbol, one-period acceptance sheet before connecting: required fields, source URL, observation time, currency, units, acceptable delay and missing-data behavior. Compare returned values to an independent source for that same period. Record an empty response or quota error as a failure to validate, not a zero financial value.
Check current access conditions, coverage, licensing, rate limits and charges in the provider/tool details before execution. No provider call was performed to validate this navigation page.