Collectors · Finance & crypto

MarketWatch API in Python

Live quote per ticker from MarketWatch — price, change, day and 52-week range, volume, market cap, P/E and EPS. One POST from Python with tickers, rows back as JSON with 31 fields, $0.003 per delivered quote. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the marketwatch_quote collector returns one dict per quote, at $0.003 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/marketwatch_quote/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "tickers": ["AAPL"],
        "max_results": 1,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("ticker"), row.get("requested_ticker"), row.get("name"), row.get("exchange"))

Python: one MarketWatch stock quote run (Un titolo), printing ticker, requested_ticker, name, exchange

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the MarketWatch stock quote collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`tickers`	array	yes	US-listed ticker symbols as MarketWatch spells them, e.g. AAPL, MSFT, BRK.B.
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo and Google locale (gl). Omit for the default pool.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 10)	How many quotes to deliver at most (1–25). You pay only for delivered quotes.

Response fields

31 fields per quote.

Fields of each row (quote)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position in the delivered rows.
`ticker`	string	Ticker symbol as the quote page states it.
`requested_ticker`	string	The symbol you asked for — differs from `ticker` when MarketWatch resolved it to another listing.
`name`	string, nullable	Company name.
`exchange`	string, nullable	Listing exchange, e.g. "U.S.: Nasdaq".
`exchange_iso`	string, nullable	ISO 10383 MIC, e.g. XNAS.
`currency`	string, nullable	Price currency.
`instrument_type`	string, nullable	Instrument type as MarketWatch classifies it, e.g. Stock.
`instrument_id`	string, nullable	MarketWatch's internal instrument id. Stable across ticker changes; the key rows are de-duplicated on.
`price`	number, nullable	Latest printed price as of `quote_time`, not as of the request — the page is CDN-cached. In premarket or after hours this is the extended-hours print, not the last regular close; `session` says which.
`change`	number, nullable	Change against the previous close, in price terms.
`change_percent`	number, nullable	Change against the previous close, in percent (0.45 means +0.45%).
`session`	string, nullable	Which tape `price` came off: open, premarket, after_hours or closed.
`quote_time`	string, nullable	As-of timestamp exactly as MarketWatch states it, including its exchange timezone, e.g. "Sep 2, 2026 8:20 a.m. EDT". This is how fresh the row actually is.
`previous_close`	number, nullable	Previous regular-session close, read from the close table MarketWatch renders alongside an extended-hours quote. Null when the page does not carry that table.
`open`	number, nullable	Regular-session open. In premarket or after hours this is the LAST COMPLETED session's open, the same tape as `volume` — not the session `price` came off.
`day_low`	number, nullable	Regular-session low, at the page's full precision. In extended hours it belongs to the last completed session, so it is not a bound on `price`.
`day_high`	number, nullable	Regular-session high, at the page's full precision. In extended hours it belongs to the last completed session, so it is not a bound on `price`.
`week52_low`	number, nullable	52-week low, at the page's full precision.
`week52_high`	number, nullable	52-week high, at the page's full precision.
`volume`	integer, nullable	Regular-session volume. Not the extended-hours tape MarketWatch shows as "Before/After Hours Volume".
`avg_volume_65d`	integer, nullable	65-day average volume.
`market_cap`	number, nullable	Market capitalisation, suffix expanded ($4.75T becomes 4750000000000).
`pe_ratio`	number, nullable	Price/earnings ratio. Null when MarketWatch prints N/A, which it does for loss-making companies.
`eps`	number, nullable	Earnings per share. Negative for loss-making companies.
`shares_outstanding`	number, nullable	Shares outstanding, suffix expanded.
`public_float`	number, nullable	Public float, suffix expanded.
`beta`	number, nullable	Beta.
`dividend`	number, nullable	Dividend per share as most recently declared.
`dividend_yield_percent`	number, nullable	Dividend yield in percent (0.33 means 0.33%).
`url`	string	Quote page the row was read from.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/marketwatch_quote/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"tickers":["AAPL"],"max_results":1}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.003 per delivered quote.

What MarketWatch stock quote rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.003
1,000	$3.00
10,000	$30.00

Up to 25 quotes per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 666 quotes. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free MarketWatch stock quote API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 666 quotes of this collector at $0.003 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 25 quotes per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.003 per delivered quote, no subscription.

Get an API key MarketWatch API