In the past year number of private investors at Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) has doubled and reached 3.86 million: in 2019 about 1.9 million people have opened accounts at MOEX. Number of accounts opened at Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, focusing on trading foreign company shares, has increased three times, from 910,000 to 3,06 million, in the past year.
This means that almost 2 million newbies without any trading experience that never used specialized software for trading and position analysis have entered the market.
While broker’s mobile applications designed for trading are continuously updating and, in general, are quite user-friendly, position analysis, particularly if you use several brokers, may raise questions. Google Sheets using free MOEX API may become a free solution with automatically downloaded asset prices and parameters.
MOEX API in Google Sheets formulas
There are two options to be used with MOEX API:
- Formulas
- Scripts
However, it appears that scripts in free documents usually confuse people, especially if these people have some investments. They are even more confused when they do not understand the script language. That’s why I would like to focus only on formulas.
General description and explanation of all the requests that you can send to MOEX API is provided in the guidebook. However, I, for one, did not find this guidebook that easy to understand, so I had to spend quite a lot of time to cope with it. For that reason, I made a simple Google Sheet with examples I use myself.
Trading Mode Identifier
In MOEX API a lot of things depend on Trading Mode Identifier parameter (primary_boardID). You can look up this parameter at their website using the search function.
Trading Mode ID
You can also find this identifier using simple HTTP request to API:
https://iss.moex.com/iss/securities.xml?q=WRITE THE FULL INSTUMENT NAME OR ITS PART HERE
Trading Mode ID
Automatic notification about the instrument name at MOEX by its identifier
It is really convenient that you can get the full instrument name. You can also get the short instrument name automatically; however, full instrument name is more coherent when you deal with bonds.
Automatic notification about the instrument cost at MOEX by its identifier
You can use numerous websites to receive prices for Russian assets, but when it comes to MOEX API relevant examples are introduced on this tab.
Automatic notification about the next coupon date and the coupon value at MOEX by bond identifier
You can receive notifications about coupon date and its value for your bonds (either corporate or Federal Loan Bonds (OFZ) and Eurobonds) automatically.
Automatic notification about dividend yield as of a specific date at MOEX by bond identifier
Unfortunately, you can obtain the dividend yield as of a specific date represented in a single formula only for OFZ, as they very shortlisted. For corporate bonds, you’ll have to pick them out in the script or choose the initial search position manually.
Automatic notification about offer dates at MOEX by bond identifier
Planning of your own funds becomes much easier, when you receive offer dates automatically.
Conclusion
MOEX API gives you powerful capabilities. In this article I described only those tools that I use as a long-term private investor.
Please note that I have no relations with Moscow Exchange and I use MOEX ISS only for personal purposes.
Author: Mikhail Shardin,
February 6, 2020