# Data Overview

Alpha Vantage provides stock market data across multiple time horizons — from real-time intraday ticks to long-term monthly aggregates. Each entity returns price and volume fields for the stock symbol you specify.

## Report types

| Entity                        | Granularity                 | Best for                                |
| ----------------------------- | --------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| Time series intradays         | 1, 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes | Day trading, intraday pattern analysis  |
| Time series dailies           | Daily                       | Trend analysis, long-term tracking      |
| Time series daily adjusteds   | Daily (adjusted)            | Accurate historical return calculations |
| Time series weeklies          | Weekly                      | Medium-term portfolio review            |
| Time series weekly adjusteds  | Weekly (adjusted)           | Adjusted weekly return tracking         |
| Time series monthlies         | Monthly                     | High-level performance reporting        |
| Time series monthly adjusteds | Monthly (adjusted)          | Long-term adjusted return analysis      |
| Quotes                        | Real-time snapshot          | Live price monitoring, dashboards       |

## Available data fields

#### Price fields

| Field          | Description                                                            |
| -------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Open           | Price at the start of the period                                       |
| High           | Highest price during the period                                        |
| Low            | Lowest price during the period                                         |
| Close          | Price at the end of the period                                         |
| Adjusted close | Close price adjusted for dividends and splits (adjusted entities only) |

#### Volume and corporate action fields

| Field             | Description                                                  |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Volume            | Number of shares traded during the period                    |
| Dividend amount   | Dividend paid during the period (adjusted entities only)     |
| Split coefficient | Stock split ratio during the period (adjusted entities only) |

#### Quote-specific fields

| Field              | Description                             |
| ------------------ | --------------------------------------- |
| Symbol             | Ticker symbol                           |
| Price              | Current trading price                   |
| Change             | Price change from previous close        |
| Change percent     | Percentage change from previous close   |
| Latest trading day | Date of the most recent trade           |
| Previous close     | Closing price from the previous session |

#### Parameters

| Parameter     | Required              | Options                                 | Notes                                              |
| ------------- | --------------------- | --------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Stock symbol  | Yes                   | Any valid ticker (e.g., MSFT, TSCO.LON) | Include exchange suffix for non-US stocks          |
| Interval      | Required for intraday | 1min, 5min, 15min, 30min, 60min         | Not used for daily/weekly/monthly                  |
| Adjusted data | Optional              | On/Off                                  | Intraday only                                      |
| Output size   | Optional              | compact, full                           | Compact = last 100 points; Full = complete history |

## Common data combinations

Here are some of the most useful ways to combine entities and parameters:

* **Daily OHLC + volume** — use Time series dailies with full output for complete price history of a stock
* **Intraday 5-minute prices** — use Time series intradays with a 5min interval for same-day trading analysis
* **Adjusted monthly closes** — use Time series monthly adjusteds to calculate accurate long-term returns after accounting for dividends and splits
* **Live quote snapshot** — use Quotes to display the current price and daily change in a real-time dashboard

## Use cases by role

{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Finance teams" %}

* Pull adjusted daily or monthly data into spreadsheets to calculate portfolio returns and benchmark performance
* Automate end-of-day price snapshots into a data warehouse for auditing and compliance records
* Track dividend-adjusted close prices to generate accurate total return reports for stakeholders
  {% endtab %}

{% tab title="Analysts" %}

* Import full historical daily data for multiple tickers to build comparative trend analysis in BI tools like Looker Studio or Power BI
* Use intraday data at 15min or 60min intervals to study price volatility patterns
* Combine weekly adjusted data across a watchlist to identify relative strength over time
  {% endtab %}

{% tab title="Developers & Data Engineers" %}

* Schedule automated imports into BigQuery or a database to build a time-series stock price dataset
* Use the compact output for lightweight daily refreshes and full output for initial historical backfills
* Set up multiple importers — one per ticker — and land data in the same destination table for easy querying
  {% endtab %}
  {% endtabs %}

## Platform-specific notes

* For **non-US stock symbols**, always append the exchange suffix (e.g., `TSCO.LON` for Tesco on the London Stock Exchange)
* The **compact** output size returns only the last 100 data points — use **full** if you need complete history
* **Adjusted entities** (daily, weekly, monthly adjusted) require an Alpha Vantage premium subscription
* Intraday adjusted data is controlled by a toggle in Advanced settings, not by selecting a separate entity
* Alpha Vantage returns data in reverse chronological order — most recent records appear first
* Free API keys are limited to **25 requests per day** and **5 requests per minute**; scheduling too many importers on a free plan may trigger rate limit errors