Koyfin Alternative for a Fundamentals API Backtest

Koyfin is a research terminal with charts, screeners, dashboards, and visual workflows. If your goal is to browse companies, compare securities, inspect charts, or conduct research interactively, Koyfin may be the better answer.

Tradevo Data addresses a narrower problem: feeding US equity fundamentals into code while controlling for when each value became public.

The distinction is simple:

• A person using a research terminal asks, “What can I learn about this company?”
• A backtest asks, “What value could my program have known on this historical date?”

Those are different jobs. This page is for the second one.

The problem is not getting fundamentals

Fundamental data is widely available. The harder problem is avoiding future information when simulating historical decisions.

Suppose a company’s fiscal year ends in December, but its annual filing becomes public weeks later. If a backtest makes the year-end value available in December, it has introduced lookahead bias. A later amendment can create another problem if the backtest silently substitutes the revised value for what investors originally saw.

A point-in-time dataset needs to preserve publication timing and revisions, not merely fiscal periods.

Tradevo Data provides each row with:

• first_filed: the date the value became public
• original_value: the first-reported, point-in-time-safe value
• latest_value: the current revision
• restated: a flag for changes above 0.5% on the same tag, including amendments
• qa_status: a quality-assurance status

The API applies first_filed <= as_of, including same-day filings. That lets code request the data available as of a specified date instead of approximating availability from a fiscal period end.

For a deeper explanation, see https://tradevodata.com/blog/lookahead-bias-fundamental-backtests?utm_content=alt-koyfin.

Koyfin vs. Tradevo Data

This is not a claim that one product is universally better. They are optimized for different interfaces and research habits.

See the lookahead leak on real filings — five companies, 225 rows, CC0, no signup. Three minutes in a notebook, before you decide anything.

Koyfin should not be judged as though it were trying to be a narrow SEC-derived data pipe. Tradevo Data should not be judged as though it were trying to replace a research terminal.

What the Tradevo API returns

The main endpoint is:

/v1/fundamentals?ticker&as_of[&concept][&period=annual|quarterly]

Annual data is the default. The dataset contains 632,466 annual point-in-time rows across 5,168 US companies, with 16 annual concepts and up to 12 fiscal years. It also contains 1,089,635 quarterly rows across 5,382 companies and seven quarterly concepts.

Annual concepts include Revenue, NetIncome, Assets, StockholdersEquity, OperatingCashFlow, EPSDiluted, DilutedShares, GrossProfit, OperatingIncome, PretaxIncome, IncomeTaxExpense, CapitalExpenditures, CashAndCashEquivalents, CurrentAssets, CurrentLiabilities, and NetPPE.

Q4 is reported where tagged or derived and labeled where supported. Tradevo Data does not derive Q4 EPS or diluted shares.

There are 37,804 labeled restatements. The purpose of retaining both original and latest values is not to declare one universally correct. It is to let the researcher choose the value appropriate to the question:

• Use original_value when testing what could have been known initially.
• Use latest_value when current revised history is appropriate.
• Inspect the restatement flag when revisions matter to the model.

There is no TTM, non-US, or delisted-company coverage. Parquet format is not included. Those limits should be part of your evaluation, not buried after signup.

More methodology is available at https://tradevodata.com/blog/point-in-time-fundamentals-data?utm_content=alt-koyfin.

A concrete backtest workflow

A date-aware fundamental backtest can follow a straightforward sequence:

1. Select a historical decision date.
2. Request a ticker with that date as as_of.
3. Filter to the concept and annual or quarterly period needed.
4. Use the original point-in-time-safe value where the strategy requires first-reported information.
5. Repeat across decision dates without manually reconstructing filing availability.

For larger jobs, Pro includes bulk access through /v1/download and date-specific snapshots through /v1/snapshot?as_of, each supporting period=annual|quarterly.

This does not make a backtest correct by itself. You still need to address survivorship bias, universe construction, execution assumptions, corporate actions, transaction costs, and missing observations. Tradevo Data specifically handles a fundamentals-timing problem; it is not a complete backtesting platform.

Inspect the evidence before paying

The public proof pack contains 225 rows covering five companies and their latest three fiscal years. It includes the full methodology and requires no signup:

https://github.com/christianpichichero-max/pit-fundamentals

On the proof pack’s reliable-filing rows only, the measured lookahead between fiscal period end and public availability had a mean of 35.2 days and a maximum of 48 days. Those statistics describe only the five-company proof pack, not the full dataset.

The repository lets you inspect whether the schema, filing logic, and trade-offs fit your research process.

When Koyfin wins

Choose Koyfin when the work is primarily visual or exploratory.

It may be the better fit if you want to:

• browse companies without writing code
• build dashboards or screens
• compare securities visually
• inspect charts during discretionary research
• use one interface for a broader market-research workflow
• communicate findings through a terminal interface

A narrow fundamentals API will not recreate those strengths. If a human wants to explore data interactively, Koyfin may be the more productive tool. Review its current features at https://www.koyfin.com/ and see its pricing page at https://www.koyfin.com/pricing/.

You can also use both: Koyfin for exploration and Tradevo Data for a reproducible, date-aware research pipeline.

When to build it yourself

Building directly from SEC EDGAR can be the right decision.

Consider doing so when:

• you need concepts outside Tradevo Data’s supported set
• you need custom taxonomy normalization
• you require non-US or delisted coverage
• you want complete control over amendment and duplicate-tag handling
• your team can maintain ingestion, filing-date logic, QA, and schema changes
• avoiding a recurring vendor dependency matters more than engineering time

SEC EDGAR data is public domain. Relevant implementation work includes normalization, point-in-time logic, amendments, inconsistent tagging, derived periods, and ongoing quality control.

If those tasks are part of your research process, build them. If they are infrastructure you would rather not maintain, a focused API may fit better.

When Tradevo Data fits

Tradevo Data is for researchers who already have code and need a budget-tier source of research-grade, point-in-time US fundamentals. It is not “the only cheap PIT” option; Sharadar, Tiingo, and QuantConnect are credible alternatives worth evaluating against your coverage and workflow requirements. Check each provider’s current pricing page rather than relying on static comparisons.

The card-backed 7-day free trial covers 10 companies, a rolling three-year history, and 100 requests per day, with no bulk access. Unless canceled, it renews at $29/month. Pro provides the complete available history, 5,000 requests per day, and bulk downloads.

Documentation is at https://tradevodata.com/docs?utm_content=alt-koyfin.

To inspect the data without signing up, start with the public proof pack:

https://github.com/christianpichichero-max/pit-fundamentals

If the schema fits your backtest, try the card-backed 7-day free trial, which renews at $29/month unless canceled:

https://tradevodata.com/?utm_content=alt-koyfin

Not investment advice. Verify competitor features and pricing directly with each provider.