Getting Started with Alpha Vantage Public API

Alpha Vantage is a website that provides free access to financial market data through its API. You can use this data to build your own financial applications, perform quantitative analysis, and more. In this blog post, we will explore the Alpha Vantage API and how you can use it to retrieve financial market data.

Registering for an API Key

To use the Alpha Vantage API, you need to sign up for a free API key. You can do so by visiting the Alpha Vantage website, and creating an account.

API Documentation

Once you have an API key, you can start interacting with the Alpha Vantage API. The API documentation contains detailed information about each API endpoint, including the required parameters and the structure of the response data. You can access the documentation here.

Example Code

To use the Alpha Vantage API in JavaScript, you can make a HTTP request to the API endpoint and parse the response data. Here are some example code snippets to get you started:

Retrieving Stock Quotes

const apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const symbol = 'AAPL';
const url = `https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=GLOBAL_QUOTE&symbol=${symbol}&apikey=${apiKey}`;

fetch(url)
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(data => {
    const quote = data['Global Quote'];
    console.log(`The current price of ${symbol} is ${quote['05. price']}`);
  });

Retrieving Intraday Time Series Data

const apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const symbol = 'AAPL';
const interval = '60min';
const url = `https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=TIME_SERIES_INTRADAY&symbol=${symbol}&interval=${interval}&apikey=${apiKey}`;

fetch(url)
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(data => {
    const timeSeries = data['Time Series (${interval})'];
    const latestTimestamp = Object.keys(timeSeries)[0];
    const latestData = timeSeries[latestTimestamp];
    console.log(`The high for ${symbol} at ${latestTimestamp} was ${latestData['2. high']}`);
  });

Retrieving Exchange Rates

const apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const fromCurrency = 'USD';
const toCurrency = 'JPY';
const url = `https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=CURRENCY_EXCHANGE_RATE&from_currency=${fromCurrency}&to_currency=${toCurrency}&apikey=${apiKey}`;

fetch(url)
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(data => {
    const exchangeRate = data['Realtime Currency Exchange Rate'];
    console.log(`The current exchange rate from ${exchangeRate['1. From_Currency Code']} to ${exchangeRate['3. To_Currency Code']} is ${exchangeRate['5. Exchange Rate']}`);
  });

Conclusion

The Alpha Vantage API provides access to a wealth of financial market data that you can use to build your own trading and investment applications. By following the steps in this blog post, you can start using the API to retrieve data and create your own scripts in JavaScript.