Google Finance Reader

Google Sheets has a built-in function called GOOGLEFINANCE which fetches current or historical financial data from Google Finance and brings it directly into a Google Sheet. Using Bannister Lake’s Google Finance Reader, Chameleon can read the Google Sheet and visualize the financial data on screen. Running the Google Finance Reader will bring the data on the Google Sheet into the Chameleon Finance module allowing the user to select and control a specific set of stock market data items.  

Begin by opening a blank Google Sheet. List the names of stocks you are interested in displaying. In the next column list the broadcast symbol or abbreviation you wish to appear on screen to represent the stock. In the next column add the Google symbol ie the combination of market symbol, colon and stock symbol. It is important to use both the exchange symbol and ticker symbol for exchanges outside the United States. For example, use “TSE:BMO” instead of “BMO.” for the Toronto Stock Exchange, Bank of Montreal (BMO)

Using the following codes and formulas, Google Sheets will pull specific, topical data from Google Finance and populate your Google Sheet.

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=en 

The following example shows  price, change, volume and last trade data based on these formulas: for price, =GOOGLEFINANCE(C2), where C2 is the stock symbol, =GOOGLEFINANCE(C2, "change"), =GOOGLEFINANCE(C2, "volume"), and =GOOGLEFINANCE(C2, "tradetime")

Open

The columns must be defined as above. Seven columns are required with the order exactly as above.

The tabs at the bottom of the sheet are important. The reader will create different finance topic names for every tab you have.  Any hidden tabs will be ignored. Also sheets that have the prefix ! will be ignored.

Like all Google Sheets, you may want to take advantage of the collaboration functionality to share the sheet and allow multiple people to contribute content.

The Google Finance Reader works the same way as other Chameleon readers. More information about Chameleon readers, specific to Google Sheets, can be found here: Google Sheets Custom Reader

After setup , open the Sheets tab and add the sheet ID of the Google Sheet that contains the market data into the reader. You will be asked to authorize your Google account.

Open

When The Reader is run, it will map to this (these) Google Sheets and pull the content into the Chameleon Finance module. More information about the Chameleon Finance module can be found here: Financials

The Google Finance Reader also has support for currencies. The sheet format is different and looks like:

In the above example, the formula to get the quote is located in the E column and looks like =GOOGLEFINANCE("CURRENCY:"&$A2&C2).In this example, the source currency is in column A2 and the destination currency is in C2. There’s a large number of currencies and crypto currencies supported by the GOOGLEFINANCE function. Five columns in exactly the order as above is required.

As in stocks/indexes, copy the sheet ID into the Currencies tab’s grid to have the reader read the sheet: