Open-Source Finance: Is OpenBB the Future of Market Analysis?

OpenBB is an open-source alternative to the traditional Bloomberg Terminal.

What is OpenBB?

For the uninitiated, the OpenBB Terminal is a free, open-source, and real-time financial database and analysis tool built on top of the programming language Python and various free financial and economic databases.

Imagine you have this incredible friend who understands finance like a pro and knows all the secret codes to get you the latest data.

That’s OpenBB Terminal — your financial guide in the form of a Command Line Interface (CLI) application. It might sound techy, but don’t worry, I’ll break it down for you.

Think of the OpenBB Terminal as a keyboard-powered treasure chest. You type in special commands (like secret passwords) and it gives you back a bunch of cool stuff — charts, tables, or just plain text.

You can support the OpenBB project by donating to them on their website or developing their products.

Windows Minimum Requirements

• Windows 10 or newer

• Modern CPU (Intel or AMD processor made in the last 5 years)

• At least 4GB of RAM

• At least 5GB of free storage

• Internet connection (cable or 4G mobile)

Installation

Today we will be discussing how to use the OpenBB Terminal on Windows. To install, click here, create an account, then press the white Windows Installer button, and follow the instructions.

Once you have properly installed OpenBB, you will see a screen like this:

The Basics

Getting Friendly with Menus

Okay, menus might remind you of restaurant choices, but in the OpenBB Terminal, they’re your roadmaps.

You follow them to get what you want. Imagine you’re on a treasure hunt, and you’re going through different menus to find the hidden gems of finance data.

Each menu has a bunch of functions that you can pick. And guess what? It’s all super easy to spot with a cool little > symbol on the left.

Navigating the Terminal

Now, let’s talk navigation — moving around the Terminal is like taking a stroll down familiar paths.

There’s a special “home” screen where the adventure begins. It’s like your starting point.

And then, you follow these paths (kind of like folders on your computer) to explore different menus.

If you ever want to go back, just type .. — like a magical portal that takes you one step back in your journey.

Help Dialogues

Think of Help Dialogues as your magical cheat sheet when you’re not sure what to do next.

Do you know how you sometimes ask a friend for advice?

Well, in the OpenBB Terminal world, you just type “h” or “ — help” after any command, and boom — you get this helpful snippet of information right on your screen. For example, the /news function:

news -h

Output:

usage: news [-t TERM [TERM ...]] [-s SOURCES] [-h] [--export EXPORT] [--sheet-name SHEET_NAME [SHEET_NAME ...]] [-l LIMIT]display news articles based on term and data sourcesoptions: -t TERM [TERM ...], --term TERM [TERM ...] search for a term on the news -s SOURCES, --sources SOURCES sources from where to get news from (separated by comma) -h, --help show this help message --export EXPORT Export raw data into csv, json, xlsx --sheet-name SHEET_NAME [SHEET_NAME ...] Name of excel sheet to save data to. Only valid for .xlsx files. -l LIMIT, --limit LIMIT Number of entries to show in data.For more information and examples, use 'about news' to access the related guide.

To search for news containing the term, “Federal Reserve”, try this command:

/news --term Federal Reserve

Charts​

The OpenBB charting library provides fully interactive and customizable charts.

Here’s an example of displaying weekly candles for NVDA, just copy and paste this into your terminal:

/stocks/load NVDA -w/candle

Output:

Toolbar​

The toolbar controls our visualization customization and is located at the bottom of our window. Our toolbar can:

• Pan and Zoom.

• Change the title and axis labels.

• Toggle light/dark mode.

• Annotate and allow for drawing.

• Export raw data.

• Save the chart as a photo.

• Add more data as an overlay.

The label is displayed by hovering our mouse over it.

Toggle the toolbar’s visibility with ctrl + h.

Text Tools​

Add text to a chart by clicking on the Add Text button, or with the keyboard, ctrl + t.

Enter some text, make any adjustments to the options, then submit. Place the crosshairs over the desired data point and click to place the text.

After placement, the text can be updated or deleted by clicking on it again.

The title of the chart is edited by clicking the button, Change Titles, near the middle center of the toolbar, immediately to the right of the Add Text button.

Draw Tools​

The fourth group of icons on the toolbar is for drawing. We can:

• Edit the colors.

• Draw a straight line.

• Draw a freeform line.

• Draw a circle.

• Draw a rectangle.

• Erase a shape.

To draw on the chart, select one of the four drawing buttons and drag the mouse over the desired area. Click on any existing shape to modify it by dragging with the mouse and editing the color, or remove it by clicking the toolbar button, Erase Active Shape. The edit colors button will pop up as a floating icon, and clicking on that will display the color palette.

Export Tools​

The two buttons at the far right of the toolbar are for saving the raw data or, saving an image file of the chart at the current panned and zoomed view.

Overlay​

The button, Overlay chart from CSV, provides an easy import method for supplementing a chart with additional data.

Clicking on the button opens a pop-up dialogue to select the file, column, and whether the overlay should be a bar, candlestick, or line chart.

As a candlestick, the CSV file must contain OHLC data. The import window can also be opened with the keyboard, ctrl-o.

After choosing the file to overlay, select what to show and then click on Submit.

Cheat Sheet​

The image below can be saved and used as a reference.

Tables​

The OpenBB Terminal sports interactive tables which opens in a separate window.

Sorting and Filtering​

Columns can be sorted ascending/descending/unsorted, by clicking the controls to the right of each header title. The status of the filtering is shown as a blue indicator.

By selecting the Type to be Advanced, columns become filterable.

The columns can be filtered with min/max values or by letters, depending on the content of each column.

Selecting Columns and Rows​

Columns can be removed from the table by clicking the icon to the right of the settings button and unchecking it from the list.

The number of rows per page is defined in the drop-down selection near the center, at the bottom.

Freeze the Index and Column Headers​

Right-click on the index name to enable/disable freezing when scrolling to the right. Column headers are frozen by default.

Exporting Data​

At the bottom-right corner of the table window, there is a button for exporting the data. To the left, the drop-down selection Type can be defined as a CSV, XLSX, or PNG file.

Cheat Sheet​

The image below can be saved and used as a reference.

Conclusion

Today we have discovered how to use OpenBB Terminal in order to interact with financial data using charts and tables.

There is much to explore in the OpenBB universe, but I hope this guide finds you well as a starting point for the basics of financial analysis using the OpenBB Terminal.

Nick

Remarks