The latest articles on DEV Community by WaburiBK (@waburibk). https://dev.to/waburibk https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F701162%2Fd604c2f4-3fb5-4bd1-b6ac-eb2ba6606b1b.png https://dev.to/waburibk en WaburiBK Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:49:51 +0000 https://dev.to/waburibk/extracting-financial-data-using-python-4eoi https://dev.to/waburibk/extracting-financial-data-using-python-4eoi <p><strong>Struggling with Virtual Environments</strong></p> <p>So before I was even able to pull financial data off Yahoo Finance using Python, I really struggled with remembering how to create a virtual environment (venv). I’ve always known that it is important to work on a venv so as to not interfere with the global Python environment. Additionally, it makes it easier to share my work with other developers.</p> <p><strong>Libraries and Dictionaries</strong></p> <p>Regardless, after being saved by tech Indian gurus on YouTube, I immediately got started on reviewing an article by <a href="https://aroussi.com/post/python-yahoo-finance">Ran Aroussi</a> , who developed the yfinance library. This library is able to reliably extract data from Yahoo Finance. <br> After installation of the pip command (pip install yfinance), I had to pass an argument of the ticker symbol that I wish to extract information from. A ticker represents each stock/security uniquely for trading purposes. In this illustration, I wanted to extract Facebook’s financial data using the ticker “FB”.</p> <p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--wHAX3uRC--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bov29maeqvmoucnfijah.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--wHAX3uRC--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bov29maeqvmoucnfijah.png" alt="Extracting Financial Data Using Python"></a></p> <p><strong>Extracting keys from the dictionary</strong></p> <p>Company information is contained within the info dictionary. I was able to extract certain elements of the dictionary by printing the keys of the info dictionary. Examples of the keys I extracted include: ‘sector’, ‘address1’ and ‘fiftyTwoWeekHigh’.</p> <p><strong>Being Specific</strong><br> Additionally, it is possible to extract daily prices over a specified period of time. This is possible through specifying the period. Valid entries include 1d, 5d, 1mo, 3mo, 6mo, 1y, 2y, 5y, 10y and ytd(year to date).<br> Furthermore, I was able to extract daily prices within a range of time. First, I had to import the datetime library. According to Python <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html">documentation</a>, the datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times. Specifically, the class datetime.datetime contains attributes of year, month, day, hour, minute, second, microsecond and tzinfo.<br> I proceeded to define my start and end dates and got an output of daily prices between the specified dates. </p> <h6> Disclaimer: Here to share my thoughts in this self-taught journey. </h6> python codenewbie programming webdev