FT Markets Scraper

US-focused sources stop at US listings, and a London, Frankfurt or Tokyo ticker returns nothing. The Financial Times tearsheet covers exchanges worldwide, and this Actor reads it: price, day range, bid and offer, average volume, shares outstanding and free float, PE and EPS, for any instrument the FT lists, addressed in its own SYMBOL:EXCHANGE form.

What it does

• Covers listings worldwide, not just the US, which is the reason to reach for this over the other equity Actors in this fleet.
• Returns one record per instrument, in order. An instrument the FT does not list comes back with status: "failed" and a reason.
• Carries free float alongside shares outstanding, so you can see how much of a company actually trades.
• Reports bid and offer next to the last price, which many tearsheet sources omit.
• Gives the key figures twice: as the FT prints them and as numbers you can sort on (marketCapNumeric, pETtmNumeric).
• Takes instruments in the FT's own SYMBOL:EXCHANGE form, so a cross-listed ticker is unambiguous.

Use cases

You need to	How this Actor does it
Price a non-US listing	Pass SHEL:LSE or 7203:TYO and read value with its own currency
Cover a global portfolio in one run	Mix US, European and Asian instruments in the same list
See how much of a company trades	Compare freeFloat against sharesOutstanding
Watch the spread on a thin listing	Subtract bid from offer
Compare valuation across venues	Read pETtmNumeric for the same company on two listings
Feed a finance agent	Call the Actor over MCP and let the model ask for the symbol it needs

Quick start

1. Click Try for free.
2. Add your instruments, one per line, in the FT's SYMBOL:EXCHANGE form: AAPL:NSQ, SHEL:LSE, BMW:GER. The exchange code is the FT's own, so NSQ is Nasdaq.
3. Find an instrument's exact code by searching it on the FT markets site and reading it off the tearsheet URL.
4. Click Start. Rows appear within seconds.
5. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or read the dataset over the API.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it controls
instruments	array	AAPL:NSQ	Instruments to read, in the FT's SYMBOL:EXCHANGE form
maxItems	integer	0	Caps how many instruments are read. 0 reads them all

{
    "instruments": [
        "AAPL:NSQ",
        "SHEL:LSE",
        "BMW:GER"
    ],
    "maxItems": 0
}

Output

One dataset item per instrument. Fields the FT does not publish for an instrument are dropped rather than returned as null, and each record carries its own currency because a global list mixes them.

Field group	Fields
Identity	status, tickerSymbol, name, exchange, currency, url
Price	value, change, changePercent, open, previousClose, bid, offer
Ranges and volume	dayLow, dayHigh, fiftyTwoWeekLow, fiftyTwoWeekHigh, avgVolume
Share structure	sharesOutstanding, freeFloat, marketCap, marketCapNumeric
Valuation	pETtm, pETtmNumeric, epsTtm, dividendYieldPercent
Timing	validFrom, scrapedAt

{
    "status": "ok",
    "tickerSymbol": "SHEL:LSE",
    "name": "Shell PLC",
    "exchange": "London Stock Exchange",
    "currency": "GBX",
    "value": 2884.5,
    "change": -18.0,
    "changePercent": -0.62,
    "open": 2901.0,
    "previousClose": 2902.5,
    "bid": 2884.0,
    "offer": 2885.0,
    "dayLow": 2871.5,
    "dayHigh": 2906.0,
    "avgVolume": 8412006,
    "sharesOutstanding": 5884000000,
    "freeFloat": 5871200000,
    "marketCap": "169.72bn",
    "marketCapNumeric": 169720000000,
    "pETtm": "12.44",
    "pETtmNumeric": 12.44,
    "validFrom": "2026-09-04T16:35:00.000Z",
    "url": "https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=SHEL:LSE"
}

Integrations

Run it over the API and get the rows back in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/publicmoney~ft-markets-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"instruments": ["AAPL:NSQ", "SHEL:LSE", "BMW:GER"], "maxItems": 0}'

From Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("publicmoney/ft-markets-scraper").call(run_input={"instruments": ["AAPL:NSQ", "SHEL:LSE", "BMW:GER"], "maxItems": 0})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["tickerSymbol"], item["name"], item["value"])

Give an AI agent the Actor over MCP:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=publicmoney/ft-markets-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Schedules run it on any cron, webhooks fire when a run finishes, and platform integrations push the dataset to Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable, Zapier or your own endpoint.

Cost

Pay per event, so you pay for records rather than compute time.

Event	Free tier	Top volume tier
Record with data	$0.002	$0.0007
Actor start	$0.00005 per GB	Same

A record that returned no data is published as a failure row and is never charged. Six volume tiers apply, so the per-record price falls with monthly volume.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
An instrument returns failed	The exchange code is wrong. The FT uses its own codes, so Nasdaq is NSQ and not NASDAQ. Search the instrument on the FT site and copy the code from the tearsheet URL.
The price looks a hundred times too large	Check currency. London listings are quoted in pence (GBX), not pounds, so 2884.5 is 28.845 pounds.
freeFloat equals sharesOutstanding	The whole share count is freely traded, which is normal for a widely held company.
pETtm is missing	The FT publishes no trailing PE for loss-making companies and for instruments that are not equities.
A US ticker works but has fewer fields than elsewhere	The FT tearsheet is thinner on US listings than a US-native source. For US tickers the StockAnalysis or Finviz Actor returns more.

FAQ

Does the Financial Times have a markets API?

No. The FT publishes no documented public API for this data. The endpoints that libraries reach for are internal and unsupported, and they change without notice. This Actor reads the public markets tearsheet, which is why it keeps working.

Why use this instead of the other equity Actors?

International coverage. The Yahoo, Nasdaq, CNBC, Finviz and StockAnalysis Actors are strongest on US listings, while the FT tearsheet covers exchanges worldwide, so a London, Frankfurt or Tokyo listing works here.

What is the SYMBOL:EXCHANGE format?

The FT's own instrument id, made of the ticker and its exchange code: AAPL:NSQ, SHEL:LSE, BMW:GER. The codes are the FT's, not the exchange's own, so copy them from a tearsheet URL.

Why is a London price in the thousands?

London equities are quoted in pence, and the currency field says GBX rather than GBP. Divide by 100 for pounds.

Does it return historical prices?

No. Each record is the current snapshot as the source publishes it. To build a series, schedule the Actor and let the dataset accumulate a row per input per run. Each row carries validFrom, so the series is correctly timestamped.

Do I need a FT Markets API key?

No. You need an Apify token to call the Actor over the API. No FT Markets credential is involved anywhere.

Can I get this data in Python?

Yes, with the apify-client package as shown above. It returns parsed JSON, so there is no HTML or response handling on your side.

Can I get the data into Excel or Google Sheets?

Yes. Export the dataset as XLSX or CSV, or connect the Google Sheets integration so each run appends to a sheet.

Can an AI agent call this Actor?

Yes. Add it to an MCP client with the config above and the model can request what it needs on its own. Every record is flat JSON with named fields, so no post-processing is needed.

Is it legal to scrape FT Markets?

This Actor reads public FT Markets data that needs no login and collects no personal data. Scraping public data is generally lawful, and how you store, redistribute or act on market data is governed by your own agreements and local rules. Take your own legal advice for your use case.

Changelog

• 0.0.2 Added free float, bid and offer, and the numeric twins for cap and PE.
• 0.0.1 First release. The FT tearsheet for any listed instrument.

Feedback

Found a field FT Markets publishes that this Actor misses, or an input it rejects? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the input and what you expected. A daily test runs every Actor in the fleet against live sources, so parser fixes ship fast.