retrieve stock numbers via some data feed

Is there any data feed, xml or api that will allow you to retrieve all the stocks (maybe limited to USA) and their curren开发者_运维百科t prices (not realtime). I know I can hit google or yahoo to get the price of one stock but I would like to get all of them.

and it has to be free.

I don't think there is a service which provides prices for "all the stocks" as it is hard to define "all". Do you want to receive all listed stocks? It would be 2000+ for NYSE and another 2000+ for NASDAQ.

The closest I am aware it mutli-ticker request from Yahoo!, but you need to provide tickers in the query. (Beware of the Yahoo! Web Services limits)

Second solution is to use Google API, build a portfolio with required positions (tickers) and query data through it. Although sounds simpler, you must be aware that Google Finance API is deprecated (but not shut down yet).