0
$\begingroup$

Is there an alternative to Bloomberg for someone who only needs historical data (stocks, futures, indices) as well as what Bloomberg calls 'reference data' - i.e. what is the multiplier of ESU4, what is the ticker of the 3rd VIX future, what is the cost of a given ETF, etc.

Most providers I have found only supply historical price data and not much else.

Thanks in advance!

$\endgroup$
8
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Have you tried FactSet and/ or Reuters? They both do things that are similar to Bloomberg in terms of providing data. I am not sure of the pricing, but they should both be slightly cheaper than Bloomberg. $\endgroup$
    – user7360
    Feb 25, 2014 at 23:46
  • $\begingroup$ Why do you need an alternative? Do you need some data that is not available in Bloomberg? Is it a cost issue? $\endgroup$
    – assylias
    Feb 26, 2014 at 0:50
  • $\begingroup$ @assylias Yes this is a cost issue. We are trying to reduce costs and seeing as we only use Bloomberg for data access, I am trying to find a suitable alternative for our purposes. $\endgroup$
    – philmo
    Feb 26, 2014 at 15:42
  • $\begingroup$ If you have a colleague you could download these (static) reference data once. In terms of the contract table of the futures (Bloomberg: CT) you could program an "algorithmus" that estimates the upcoming contracts. $\endgroup$
    – Markus
    Feb 26, 2014 at 21:00
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Does this answer your question? What data sources are available online? $\endgroup$
    – Alper
    Aug 29, 2023 at 5:52

6 Answers 6

6
$\begingroup$

Here is what you can definitely use: Thomson Reuters Eikon

$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

Market data for professional users is generally much more expensive than retail so Bloomberg might not be a bad deal in the end. As for alternatives consisting of both data and data store:

  • $0 for Axibase TSD on single node (my affiliation)
  • $699 + exch. fees for polygon.io delayed feed for all US exchanhes (no affiliation)

Another idea, at least for equities, is to use delayed IEX TOPS archives. They're zero cost and are updated shortly after midnight UTC. Most trades are within the NBBO spread. Average volume is 300M shares, 3M trades, $20B per day.

enter image description here

$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

IMHO, the best data provider outside of Bloomberg for those who are comfortable with programmatic access is TickData.com. You can get enormous amounts of future and stock data. They have API access. You can customise how you do rolls. They have an API. You can work with AWS. It's professional grade data with professional access and data cleaning / customisation options.

$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

try also Datastream. but at the end it really depends on the type of financial data that you need.

$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

If you are a quant fund, algoseek.com is the data vendor worth checking out.

Algoseek provides comprehensive, professional intraday and end-of-day market data products designed especially for quants and machine learning. For example, their equity Trade+Quote minute bar has around 80 data points, providing detailed information on market dynamics and microstructure.

Algoseek data products cover the major asset classes including equities, futures and options. They provide both historical data and updates.

$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ Also, compared with Bloomberg, algoseek's pricing is much more reasonable. $\endgroup$
    – Amanda
    Mar 24, 2021 at 13:53
0
$\begingroup$

For daily futures prices via ftp download, my experience overall with https://www.csidata.com/ was very good. They provide all the metadata you need via a simple web API. I'd typically download metadata (and update my RDBMs) each weekend. They also bundle their data in a retail-oriented Windows application, which is probably cheaper, but I have no experience with that.

CSIdata definitely is NOT a general purpose "Bloomberg alternative". But just for daily futures data, it's BETTER. Bloomberg is very comprehensive, but CSIData is better organized, easier to work with, and also much cheaper.

$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.