How To Get Forex Data For Analysis

With ever more data set needed for financial decision making and trading, demand for data has never been more pressing. We get a lot of queries from prospective users asking for live and historical forex data for analysis purposes and we try to enable as many users as we can in their endeavours. It can be difficult for new users looking to source financial market data on how to go about sourcing it. Common questions hover around the delivery of data, quality of data, and cost of data.

The Delivery of Data

It can be daunting for beginners to get market data given so many delivery options. Also, different data types may require different delivery methods. That said, it doesn't have to be this hard. We continue to make our data delivery more inclusive and accessible to all.

Via MS Excel and CSV

For the less technical user, MS Excel is a great tool to get and analyse FX data. This can be done using functions or writing third party Add-ins. Once data is in Excel it is a seamless experience to process for decision making. We have an Excel add-in and tutorial to get you started with importing real-time and historical Forex, Crypto and CFD data. We also offer timeseries data that can be helpful to plot data onto charts and even draw technical indicators if need be. This is essential if you are processing for quality, summarising, audit or trading strategy purposes. For bulk data analysis, we also offer CSV downloads which can be helpful if you are processing large sums of data. 

Via RESTful API and SDK

For programmers getting financial data via the REST API is an excellent way. The APIs have gained popularity, and Python language is a go-to for financial analysts and traders as it provides tons of third party libraries that make data analysis easier. Pandas is one such package that will let you do stats on forex data such as daily Range, Correlation, Standard Deviation in one command. You can read our tutorials on Pandas to get started with Python. We have our Python SDK (built on top of our API ) that lets you get real-time forex data in three lines of code. Our JSON REST API provides live and historical data (OHLC and Tick). We provide quick start tutorials on Javascript, Go, and C# for beginners and have tons of documentation to get users started.

Via WebSocket

For the more sophisticated programmers and analysts who want to analyze tick forex in real-time, WebSocket is an ideal option. It's simple and allows data analysis on the fly, enabling real-time decision making. Users looking for a forex data feed for their analysis should also explore this option.

The Quality of Data

The data quality is paramount, and the data analysis is as good as the source it depends on. There are lots of cheap resources out there but, the issue is that most of them are cheap for a reason. If data quality is not accurate, the user's decision making is faulty, rendering the whole exercise pointless or lossful. At TraderMade, we curate our data by aggregating multiple providers thus, ensuring a very high standard in the industry. 

The Cost of Data

We always try to make our data accessible to all, and that is why, despite selling our data to multinationals, we have a free option for up to 1000 data requests a month on our API and Excel Add-in. 

Conclusion

In our view, getting quality forex data is the most important aspect of analysis and trading. If you are a non-technical user, your best option is to get data via MS Excel, as you can get set up quickly and process large amounts of data. If you are a beginner coder or looking to learn to program, sourcing our data via a python SDK using a pandas library is the most suited. 

For questions and queries on the topic, please contact us or chat with our expert.