How do I get the volatility and Sharpe ratio of a fund by ISIN?
Three-year annualised volatility and Sharpe ratio for any fund or ETF from its ISIN as JSON: data.headlineMetrics.volatility3y and .sharpe3y, computed from the NAV series when published.Updated 12 September 2026 · by FundFacts APIShort answer
Call GET https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/funds/{isin} with a bearer API key and read data.headlineMetrics.volatility3y in the JSON response (related fields: data.headlineMetrics.sharpe3y, data.metrics.volatility3y / sharpe3y). Where the fund house publishes a NAV history the figures are computed from it (monthly returns, annualised, risk-free rate from the share-class currency); where only the factsheet prints them, the printed values are used. The Free plan gives 15 lookups a month with no card, and the keyless demo endpoint shows the shape for an already-loaded fund.
Where it is in the response
| Path | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
data.headlineMetrics.volatility3y | string | Annualised standard deviation of monthly returns over three years, e.g. "11.8%". |
data.headlineMetrics.sharpe3y | string | Three-year Sharpe ratio, e.g. "1.68". |
data.metrics.volatility3y / sharpe3y | string | Same figures in the detailed metrics block. |
Sample for iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF (IE00B4L5Y983):
json"headlineMetrics": { "volatility3y": "11.8%", "sharpe3y": "1.68" },"metrics": { "maxDrawdown": "-16.5%" }
Where the figure comes from
Where the fund house publishes a NAV history the figures are computed from it (monthly returns, annualised, risk-free rate from the share-class currency); where only the factsheet prints them, the printed values are used. The freshness page states the formulas, and this guide shows how to recompute them from indexedPerformance.points.
The request
bashcurl -s --max-time 300 https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/funds/IE00B4L5Y983 \-H "Authorization: Bearer $FUNDFACTS_API_KEY" | jq '.data.headlineMetrics | {volatility3y, sharpe3y}'
pythonimport os, requestsr = requests.get("https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/funds/IE00B4L5Y983",headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['FUNDFACTS_API_KEY']}"}, timeout=300)fund = r.json()print(fund["name"], fund['data']['headlineMetrics']['volatility3y'])
javascriptconst res = await fetch("https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/funds/IE00B4L5Y983", {headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.FUNDFACTS_API_KEY}` },signal: AbortSignal.timeout(300_000),});const fund = await res.json();console.log(fund.name, fund.data.headlineMetrics.volatility3y);
Sign up at fundfactsapi.com/signup for a key; the Free plan is 15 lookups a month with no card. Without a key, GET https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/demo/funds/IE00B4L5Y983 returns the same payload for funds already in the store (30 calls a minute per IP; it never loads a new fund).
Caveats
- Funds younger than three years return empty strings; check
keyFacts.inception. - Sharpe ratios computed by different providers differ with the risk-free rate they assume; compare funds within one source.
Several funds at once
POST /funds with { "isins": ["…", "…"], "wait": true } returns the same payload for up to 10 ISINs per call on Starter, 50 on Pro and 200 on Scale. One request is counted per ISIN answered. X-RateLimit-Remaining on every response tells you how many are left this month; a 429 rate_limited response carries Retry-After. Search and /me are free.
A fund nobody has requested in the last 24 hours is loaded on demand from the documents the fund house publishes. That first call takes 15 seconds to about 3 minutes; set your client timeout to 300 seconds and do not fire a second request for the same ISIN while the first is running. Every later call within 24 hours returns from the store in well under a second with cached: true.
Everything else in the payload is listed in the field reference.
Verify it yourself
The demo endpoint returns the live payload for a fund that is already in the store, without a key. Everything on this page can be checked against it.bashcurl -s https://fundfactsapi.com/api/v1/demo/funds/IE00B4L5Y983 | jq '{name, asOf: .data.dataAsOf, ter: .data.headlineMetrics.ter, risk: .data.riskRating, top: .data.topHoldings[:3]}'