title: Unable to read S&P500 using pandas_datareader on Google Finance
body: <p><strong>Goal:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to read historical data from Google Finance for the S&amp;P500 using pandas_datareader.  </p>
  
  <p><strong>Issue</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm using the symbol on google finance but I keep getting the same error "unable to read url".  I pretty sure I'm putting in the wrong symbol but I've tried all the options I know and I don't know what else to do.  What symbol can I use with pandas_datareader to pull the historical data for the S&amp;P 500?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Results</strong></p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1bQR9.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Results &amp; Errors</a></p>
  
  <p><strong>Code</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>import urllib, sys, pandas, pandas_datareader
  from yahoo_finance import Share
  from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
  from pandas_datareader import data
  import fix_yahoo_finance
  from datetime import datetime
  
  def Main():
      datetime_start = datetime(2010, 1, 1)
      datetime_finish = datetime(2013, 1, 27)
  
      f_google = data.DataReader('F', 'google', datetime_start, datetime_finish)
      print('Ford on google, symbol "F", on 04 January 2010: %s' %f_google.loc['2010-01-04'])
  
      sp_500_yahoo = Share('^GSPC')
      print('Yahoo S&amp;P 500: %s' %sp_500_yahoo.get_price())
  
      list_symbols = ['INDEXSP:.INX', 'INDEXSP', '.INX', 'INDEXSP:', '^GSPC', 'SPX']
  
      for string_symbol in list_symbols:
          try:
              sp500_google = data.DataReader(string_symbol, 'google', start = datetime_start, end = datetime_finish)
              print('\nS&amp;P 500 on google, symbol %s, on 04 January 2010: %s' %(string_symbol, sp500_google.loc['2010-01-04']))
              except Exception as e:
                  string_error = str(e.args)
                  print('\nError for S&amp;P 500 symbol %s on google: %s' %(string_symbol, string_error))
          else:
             pass
          finally:
             pass
  
       # system info
       print('\npython version: %s' %sys.version)
       print('pandas version: %s' %pandas.__version__)
       print('pandas_datareader version: %s' %pandas_datareader.__version__)
       print('fix_yahoo_finance version: %s' %fix_yahoo_finance.__version__)
  
  if __name__ == '__main__':
       Main()
  </code></pre>