GOOGLEFINANCE #N/A from an illegal attribute or a bad historical window

GOOGLEFINANCE(ticker, attribute, start, end, interval) returns #N/A when attribute is not legal for that call, or when the historical window is impossible. A bad ticker is a different #N/A. This page does not publish a price. A number in a cell is a delayed quote from Google, not a recommendation, and not a value you should copy into another sheet as “the” close.

Sheet Error is not a broker and not Google. Do not trade from this recreate.

The ticker miss (NOTATICKER, USD/JPY with a slash, "notanattribute" on a currency pair) is GOOGLEFINANCE #N/A. Use that page to repair the symbol. Stay here when the symbol is plausible and the attribute or the dates are not.

Recreate it on a blank sheet

1. Open a blank spreadsheet. Keep the Google Sheets UI in English. You need a network. If a formula sits on Loading… for a moment, that is the fetch, not #N/A.

Historical attribute, dates in order. In A1 type window. In A2 enter =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","close","2024-01-02","2024-01-05"). When the fetch works, A2 spills a small table whose first row is headers, including a date header and a close header, and whose next rows are sessions in that window. Do not type those closes into this article or into a second cell to “freeze” them. If your network blocks the fetch, leave A2 and use the error rows below as the lesson. A blocked spill (a value sitting in B3) is #REF! with a tooltip that the array result was not expanded. That is SORT / UNIQUE spill, not a bad attribute. Move the blocker. Do not change "close".

End before start. In A8 type reversed. In A9 enter =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","close","2024-06-01","2024-01-01"). The cell shows #N/A. The start is June and the end is January. The attribute close is a historical attribute. The window is the bug. Leave A9 broken.

Real-time attribute plus a date window. In C1 type eps_window. In C2 enter =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","eps","2024-01-02","2024-01-05"). The cell shows #N/A. eps is a quote attribute, not a historical series. Passing start and end does not turn it into a history. Leave C2 broken.

Price is not the historical name. In C4 type price_window. In C5 enter =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","price","2024-01-02","2024-01-05"). The cell shows #N/A. Historical names include open, close, high, low, volume, and all. price is the real-time attribute. With no dates, =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","price") is a quote call. With dates, price is the wrong name. Leave C5 broken.

Interval. In C7 type interval. In C8 enter =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","close","2024-01-02","2024-01-31","HOURLY"). The cell shows #N/A. The documented intervals for this historical call are DAILY and WEEKLY. HOURLY is not one of them. Leave C8 broken.

This page will not add a currency pair with eps or close as a second lesson. Unsupported attributes on CURRENCY:USDJPY are already on GOOGLEFINANCE #N/A.

What is actually wrong

• The function has two shapes. Without dates, the second argument is a quote attribute (price, and others such as priceopen, high, low, volume, eps, pe, marketcap, tradetime, datadelay, closeyest). With a start date, the second argument is a historical attribute (open, close, high, low, volume, all). Mixing them is #N/A. C2 and C5 are that mix.
• Historical arguments are start, then end or a number of days, then an optional interval. The end must not fall before the start. A9 is a reversed window. Swapping the two dates is the edit. Changing GOOG to another ticker does not repair June-before-January.
• num_days replaces the end date. It is not a fifth argument next to an end date you also passed. Read the formula’s commas before you add DAILY.
• A historical call spills. One price in A2 and a header beside it means the rectangle was blocked (#REF!) or you are looking at a quote formula. Quote formulas return one cell. History returns a table. Plan empty rows under the formula.
• #N/A here is not “the market is closed.” A delayed last value is still a value. The ticker page covers delay. Do not refresh A9 until it becomes a price. It will not.
• Nothing here is advice to buy, sell, or hold. GOOG is a convenient symbol because the attribute rules are easy to see. It is not a pick.

A misspelled ticker is still #N/A, and it looks like C2. If "close" with a forward window also fails, check the symbol on the ticker page before you keep editing the attribute.

Fix

Leave A9, C2, C5, and C8 broken.

History: close, start, end, in that order. Use A2’s shape: =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","close","2024-01-02","2024-01-05"). For a weekly step, the fifth argument is "WEEKLY", not "HOURLY". For every historical field, the attribute is "all", which spills more columns. Keep the landing zone empty.

A quote, with no dates. =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","price") or =GOOGLEFINANCE("GOOG","eps") omits the window. Do not leave the dates in place and only rename eps to price. That is C5.

Do not wrap the #N/A. IFERROR turns a bad window into a blank and a dashboard prints nothing for that ticker. See IFERROR vs IFNA. Fix the attribute list or the date order.

If #N/A appeared as soon as you added dates, the attribute is not a historical one. If the attribute is close and the dates run backwards, swap them. If the fifth argument is not DAILY or WEEKLY, delete it or replace it.