Re: The FinancialData Function
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg87183] Re: The FinancialData Function
- From: jasonc at wolfram.com
- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 05:16:45 -0500 (EST)
- References: <fsibce$64l$1@smc.vnet.net>
Hello. I work at Wolfram and have worked on FinancialData, and other curated data projects (CountryData e.g.). I might be able to address some of your concerns. We consider FinancialData - as it is now - "experimental" in the sense that it isn't really finished growing yet and it is going to get a lot more powerful, not in the sense that it is going to go away. We started off just making it easier for people to get public forms of data, things that are readily available in formats like Excel, into Mathematica and in standardized Mathematica expressions. Instead of our users each doing a bunch of intervening steps themselves to use this stuff, we'd do it right, once, for all of them. And add value in the form of a flexible Mathematica function that works with others in ways our users expect, etc. But we realize the types of data readily available that way, are only the first layer of what practioners want. In the future we are going to make even more available through FinancialData. To do that, we've made deals with data providers to get our users free access, within Mathematica (and subject to the usual terms of use issues over resale etc), to much more comprehensive data feeds - including options, futures, mutual funds, detailed fundamentals, economic time series, intraday tick by tick prices, etc. That should also address some concerns over possible third party changes and code breakage - our partners aren't going to change their services in ways that break our agreements with them. Implementing each of those extra features takes some work and therefore some time. Internally we have all this stuff already, in some form, but there is an intervening curation step - and some function design for qualifying arguments and the like - to get it to final forms we are satisfied with and think our users will expect. The bottom line is "stay tuned, more FinancialData coming soon"... I hope this helps. And I'd be happy to answer additional questions.