Project Title: FINRA BROKER’s verified DATA Scraping

Project Description:

Purpose: download information on selected analysts from FINRA’s BrokerCheck Estimated Resources: 225 man hours (approx. 60 entries per hour) with a minimum of 30 hours per day.

Output: Folder with downloaded and properly named pdf files and populated input.xlsx file delivered in any form convenient for you.

Accuracy: I require 99% accuracy and I will monitor it by hiring two separate groups and comparing each groups output. Each group will submit 2000 entries at a time, I then will crosscheck the output and will approve the next 2000 entries job only if the previous submission met my accuracy standards. Otherwise, our cooperation is over.

Possible pitfalls: FINRA might block IP’s for excessive searching, if this happens it is your job to jump through this or any other hurdles they might have.

Questions: Direct all questions I will respond within 7 hours, but most often much earlier than that.

Instructions:

1. Go to http://brokercheck.finra.org/Search/Search.aspx, click Start Search and agree with Terms & Conditions. This will lead you to FINRA’s BrokerCheck simple search interface. On the right hand side locate Advanced Search and click it. You will be working with the left hand side of the Advanced Search interface.

2. File input.xlsx contains a list of analysts sorted by the brokerage for which they work. For example, the fifth analyst in the list is J. Buttarazzi and he works for the brokerage with the abbreviated name ADAMS. That brokerage has an identification CRD code: 1020. Your job is to download information on each of the analyst in the list. You do this by:

a. In the First Name field type the provided first letter of analyst’s fist name (column analystf in input.xlsx file) and select the option Begins With.

b. In the Last Name field type the provided last name of an analyst (column analystl in input.xlsx file) and select the option Exact Match.

c. In the Employing Brokerage Firm’s CRD# (optional) field type the provided CRD code.

d. Click Start Broker Search, after clicking it you will be often asked to type in a random 6- character code. Do that and proceed to the next step.

e. Within the search results locate the Other Names field. Whenever this field is not empty, copy and paste each full name in the input.xlsx file’s columns other_names. The first full name goes into the column other_names_1, the second name (if any) goes into the column other_names_2, etc. If no other names are provided, leave all of these columns empty. If more than one analyst appears in the search results, take care of only the first analyst on the search results list and ignore all the rest.

f. Within the search results locate the Legal Name (CRD#) field. If this field has the name of an analyst, then click on it and you will be directed to the new page with more information on an analyst.

g. On the right hand side of this new page locate GET DETAILED REPORT button and click on it. This will download the pdf file.

h. Name this file in the following way: brokerage_analystl_analystf.pdf. For example, the fifth entry in the input.xlsx will be named: adams_buttarazzi_j.pdf. If more than one analyst appears in the search results, take care of only the first analyst on the search results list and ignore all the rest. If no analysts appear in the search results, type “1” in the column no_result in the input.xlsx file.

NOTE: Make sure that during each search you selected Begin With option near the First Name field, otherwise the search will return nothing and you will falsely record the entry as having no result. This will count as a mistake.

For similar work requirement feel free to email us on info@webscrapingexpert.com