Fundamental Data API

Q: How do I authenticate requests to the API?

Authentication is done by appending your api_key as a URL query parameter on every GET request — for example: ?ticker=AAPL&api_key=YOUR_KEY. Obtain your key by registering at businessquant.com/pricing.

Base URL

All API requests should be directed to the following base URL. Endpoints are accessed exclusively via secure HTTP GET requests, passing your api_key as a URL query parameter.

https://data.businessquant.com

Supported Asset Classes

The API covers three asset classes, each queryable by its native identifier — no conversion required.

Stocks

All US-listed equities traded on NYSE, Nasdaq, and OTC markets. Query by ticker or SEC CIK. Covers domestic companies and foreign private issuers filing 20-F or 40-F.

Mutual Funds

Registered open-end funds reporting to the SEC. Query by Series ID for dividend history, profile data, and ownership records. Includes income, money-market, and bond funds.

ETFs

Exchange-traded funds registered under the Investment Company Act. Query by ticker or Series ID for dividend yields, institutional ownership, and profile metadata.

Explore the API Endpoints

Select an endpoint below to view its available parameters, authentication requirements, and standard JSON response formats.

Stocks Profile

Retrieve comprehensive metadata, descriptive profiles, and master identifiers (CIK, CUSIP, EIN) for US-listed equities. Includes SIC codes, exchange history, and multi-paragraph business descriptions.

Funds Profile

Retrieve metadata, descriptive profiles, and master identifiers specifically tailored for mutual funds and ETFs. Query by ticker or Series ID.

Financial Statements

Extract income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, financial ratios, and growth metrics — parsed from 10-K, 10-Q, 20-F, 40-F, and 6-K SEC filings and updated within 10 minutes of publishing.

Analyst Estimates

Track forward-looking Wall Street consensus estimates for revenue and EPS across future quarters and fiscal years — with reported actuals and high/low ranges included in every response.

Dividends

Get historical dividend payments, ex-dividend dates, and daily trailing twelve-month (TTM) yield time-series for stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds — 14+ years of coverage.

Segment Financials

Extract deeply categorized operating metrics broken down by product line, geographic region, and business unit — including segment revenue, operating income, and asset allocation over time.

Peers Analysis

Dynamically fetch competitors and calculate aggregated sector or industry averages and medians across custom fundamental metrics.

SEC Filings

Search, filter, and retrieve exact SEC EDGAR filing URLs, accession numbers, and publication dates across 20M+ filings and 400+ form types since 1993.

Documents & Exhibits

Download every file inside any SEC EDGAR filing — primary HTML reports, legal exhibits, XBRL linkbase files, and graphics — across 18M+ filings since 1993.

Institutional Ownership

Access detailed records of institutional fund holdings sourced from SEC Form 13F filings — top holders, quarterly history, buy/sell statistics, and full transaction records.

Insider Transactions

Track executive and director trading activity sourced from SEC Forms 3, 4, and 5 — transaction history, top holders, net trading activity, and per-insider ownership summaries.

Building an investment research tool? A typical workflow combines several endpoints: start with Financial Statements for income and balance sheet data, layer in Segment Financials for granular revenue breakdowns, and cross-reference with Insider Transactions and Institutional Ownership for conviction signals — all free to use under one API key.

Standard Response Architecture

Every Business Quant API response follows a strict, predictable JSON schema divided into two primary objects:

metadata: Contains the contextual parameters of your request — resolved identifiers (CIK, tickers), company names, matched modes, and pagination details.
data: Contains the requested dataset, formatted as an array of objects (like Peers or Filings) or a nested hierarchical object (like Financial Statements), depending on the endpoint.

Universal Wrapper Structure

{
  "metadata": {
    "ticker": "AAPL",
    "companyname": "Apple Inc.",
    "page": 1,
    "total_records": 150
    // ... contextual variables confirming your query
  },
  "data": [
    // ... the requested dataset array or object
  ]
}

Error Codes & Handling

The Business Quant API uses conventional HTTP response codes to indicate the success or failure of a request. Codes in the 2xx range indicate success. Codes in the 4xx range indicate a client-side error (missing parameters, invalid API key, resource not found). Codes in the 5xx range indicate an issue with our backend servers.

HTTP Code	Error Title	Description & Resolution
`200`	OK	The request was completely successful and the requested JSON payload is returned.
`400`	Bad Request	The request was unacceptable. This typically happens if you omitted a required parameter, provided invalid formatting (e.g., a bad date string), or provided conflicting filters.
`401`	Unauthorized	No valid API key provided. Ensure you are successfully appending your `api_key` as a URL query parameter to the request.
`403`	Forbidden	The API key is valid, but your account lacks permissions to access the requested endpoint, or your subscription tier limits access to this specific module.
`404`	Not Found	The requested resource does not exist. This commonly occurs if you pass an invalid, unknown, or delisted `ticker`, or an incorrect SEC `accession` number.
`422`	Unprocessable Entity	A parameter was passed but failed schema validation (e.g., passing a string into an integer-only field like `limit` or `page`).
`429`	Too Many Requests	You have exceeded your account's rate limit or your total monthly API quota. Please slow down your request volume or upgrade your subscription tier.
`500`	Internal Server Error	An unexpected issue occurred on our backend infrastructure. These errors are logged and monitored actively by our engineering team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about the Business Quant Fundamental Data API.

Is this fundamental data API free to use?

Yes. The Business Quant Fundamental Data API is free to use. Sign up to receive an API key and start pulling financial statements, SEC filings, segment data, insider transactions, and analyst estimates immediately — no credit card required.

What asset classes does the API cover?

The API covers US-listed stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs. Stocks and ETFs are queryable by ticker symbol or SEC Central Index Key (CIK). Mutual funds are queryable by ticker, CIK, or Series ID. Foreign private issuers trading on US exchanges and filing 20-F or 40-F reports are also supported.

Where does the financial data come from?

All data is sourced directly from SEC EDGAR — the official filing system for US public companies. Financial statements are parsed from 10-K and 10-Q filings, insider transactions from Form 4, and institutional ownership from Form 13F. Data is updated within minutes of each filing being accepted by EDGAR.

What types of fundamental data can I access?

The API provides income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, pre-calculated financial ratios, segment revenue and operating income breakdowns, geographic revenue data, Wall Street analyst consensus estimates, historical dividend payments and daily yield time-series, insider transaction records, and institutional 13F ownership data — all from one API key.

How do I authenticate requests to the API?

Authentication is done by appending your api_key as a URL query parameter on every GET request — for example: ?ticker=AAPL&api_key=YOUR_KEY. Obtain your key by registering for free.