If you’re using Google Sheets to track stocks, chances are you’ve used the GOOGLEFINANCE formula to get stock prices with a 15-minute delay. While Google doesn’t provide real-time stock prices with the GOOGLEFINANCE formula, you can still obtain real-time prices using the STOCKDATA formula through the Market Data Google Sheets extension. Unlike outdated stock prices, the STOCKDATA formula will provide you with a real-time price in a single cell or a complete level 1 quote with buying and selling prices, volume, bid size, ask size, last trade, and more.
See How Easy It Is to Get Real-Time Stock Prices in Your Google Spreadsheet
Level 1 Real-Time Quote Table for Google Sheets
A popular option for better organizing your spreadsheet is to create a level 1 real-time quote table for all the stocks you need prices for. In a single sheet of your Google spreadsheet, you can place all your real-time prices, and then use cell references from that sheet to populate your other formulas with the buying/selling data as needed.
When you want to group multiple quotes into a single table, you can use the noheaders option, usually by using cell references. This allows you to put all your option symbols in a single column, and the STOCKDATA formula will generate detailed level 1 quotes next to them. Add the first row normally with headers, then on each subsequent row, use the noheaders option to create a table filled with level 1 quotes.
This is particularly useful for users who are on the Market Data forever free plan. Since you only have 100 prices per day, you can create a real-time quote table and then use a VLOOKUP formula to look up the price in that table and populate other cells on the same spreadsheet with the prices from that table, instead of making multiple API calls to the Market Data servers.
Guide to Real-Time Stock Price Formulas
Use this quick guide to copy-paste these examples into your own Google spreadsheet to quickly start building your formulas.
- Real-Time Mid Bid/Ask Price
=STOCKDATA("AAPL")
- Full Level 1 Real-Time Quote
=STOCKDATA("AAPL","all")
- Full Level 1 Real-Time Quote without Header Rows
=STOCKDATA("AAPL","all,noheaders")
Now you can track stock prices in real-time in Google Sheets using the Market Data STOCKDATA formula. Give it a try now and enjoy a more accurate and up-to-date stock tracking experience in your Google spreadsheet!
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