A dividend hunting app
Today I set my mind to creating an app which would allow me to enter stocks that I was tracking and look back over the previous month to check if there were any dividends. I'm pleased to say that at the end of the day I now have an app / webpage that works.
it isn't fancy at all but it does work.
Now that may not seem very interesting. After all I could just go to Yahoo finance enter in each ticker symbol and get the information very quickly. However, eventually I would love to make a sandbox version of a HIVE stock market and getting stock quotes would be imperative for that. I need somewhere to get a BUY/SELL price. I need to have an oracle that tells me if dividends are payable.
... and it needs to be automated as I certainly can't go and manually do it every single sale and every single dividend!
But I'm not a coder. I don't speak computer
Two years ago a task like this would have been completely beyond my ability. Now with vibe coding it IS possible but that doesn't mean it is easy.
I can type in what I want to chatgpt or other AI but that doesn't mean I don't need to do other things.
I need to have an API to access financial databases.
With the API I need to have a secret key stored on a private backend.
I need to have a typescript code/webpage running on that backend to process my data requests from the front end webpage.
And of course I have to have a front end for me to interact with.
I wish it was as easy as just typing a prompt and letting the AI do the work and perhaps if I used a CLI type AI like Claude it would be. However using the tools I have it still as a steep learning curve. What goes where. How do I access everything and of course... What tools work for what?
Today's Gotcha's
In today's efforts?
Lots of little things.
For example I started with a Finnhub API
But it didn't play nicely with the dividends I needed
So I tried FMP
and it would have worked except it changed the way the webpage has to interact with an endpoint giving me no end of headaches.
But I finally got it working.... only to find out that Canadian stocks only work with the premium subscription.
Grrrr*
Eventually I found an API (sort of) that worked.
Horray!
Except that I got errors when looking at HDIF and ZWQT ETF's.
Oh brother
Until I figured out that they require HDI.to and ZWQT.to to signify they are on the Toronto stock exchange. Maybe its a little thing but its still more bug hunting trying to figure out
...OK, now what is wrong
But at the end of the day....
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Still, looking at it from where I am now? In less than an afternoon I have a useful piece of code that will simplify my monthly reports for the stocks that I'm holding to pay out FIAT to the HIVE infrastructure. I've learned some valuable information about how API keys work, how I can get financial data from major sources, and how I can use and present that information.
One step closer on a stock exchange model for Hive.
.. A tiny step to be sure.
However, two years ago I knew about the power of NFT's. Knew how cool things could be if only someone would do the coding to make it a reality. Now with vibe coding...and a lot of patience... I can actually work piece by piece to make demonstration software available.
That makes me smile as an endpoint...
... even if bug hunting and dead ends make me grouchy in the short term :)
And now to manually bring some money back to HIVE tomorrow before figuring out what the next step on my journey of HIVE programming of dApps :D