Zephyr and Amadeus (New and old)

In an earlier post I told you about the new Amadeus interface. I said that there were some excellent improvements over the old interface. An example is the way you can find additional company information using information from another database. Identifiers you can upload are for instance: BVDEP ID Numbers, ISIN codes and Sedol codes. The first is, of course, a proprietary code for databases from Bureau Van Dijk.

In the old interface you first need to create a text file that can then be uploaded and this file needs to have a specific name. In the new interface you can upload infromation directly from an excel file without the need to first create a text file. The movie below shows how you can use company information from the database Zephyr to find more company data in Amadeus using both the old and the new interface.

NB: Zephyr has information on Mergers & Acquisitions, Initial Public Offerings and Venture Capital deals with links to financial company information.

Author information: LinkedIn

11:09 PM - 31 January 2010

Standard & Poor's website and Indexes

In an earlier post I have referred to the Standard & Poor's website for downloading historical lists of their indexes: S&P 500, S&P 400 and the S&P 600 (together they form the S&P 1500). After registering for access it was possible to download historical lists going back to the year 2000. Unfortunately the website has changed and this information is no longer available from this website at the earlier location and the historical daily lists only go back 1 year now.

To download the currently available S&P historical indexes for the past year you now need to register (no cost involved) at the website of the Index Data Platform:
https://www.sp-indexdata.com

When you are logged in the following screen appears where you need to go to the quick link "Data History".

After clicking this option the next screen appears where, under the tab "standard reports", you can select the index and date at the top left side. At the bottom you can then choose to export the index list to Excel or as a text file:

Author information: LinkedIn

11:56 PM - 27 January 2010

Currency conversion in Datastream - Supplement

When downloading data it is important to find out first if the data you are downloading can be meaningfully converted into a different currency. It is, to name a fictive example, not very meangifull to convert a series of numbers into dollars if these numbers are, for instance ratio's. The components of calculated data (ratio's), however, may of course be converted if you want to recalculate data using numbers based on a different currency.

Author information: LinkedIn

06:08 PM - 20 January 2010

Currency conversion and CDS in Datastream

I Recently looked for data on Credit Default Swaps (CDS) in datastream to download data. When I tried to download data for the CDS Datastream worked fine and I got the information I wanted. When I tried to convert some CDS time series from Dollars into Euros using the Currency conversion option ~E I could not get any data from Datastream. Somehow Datastream refused to convert the original numers into a different currency. The example I used and tested was the Ford Motor company 5 Years CDS with the mnemonic: F....S5

I also tried different time priods and different data types (for instance SB, SM and SR). Nothing seemed to work. Through the Thomson Financial helpdesk I learned that there was a technical issue with converting CDS and this does not work for now. I have no idea when and if this issue will be resolved.

The only option that is left is to convert the currencies yourself. When you want to recalculate Datastream curency information you need to download and use the World Market Reuters (WMR) series for the currencies you need. Datastream uses these same exchange rates for its own automated currency conversions. In a previous post you can read more on exchange rates in Datastream.

Author information: LinkedIn

12:37 PM - 19 January 2010

Worldscope company data

Worldscope is an international database containing financial profiles, fundamental analysis, and stock performance data. Worldscope takes into consideration the variety of accounting conventions now in use worldwide and presents more than 6,000 data variables in a reformatted design that facilitates comparisons between companies within and across national boundaries. Worldscope data variables include financial variables extracted from source documents, data items computed from fundamental variables, general corporate data, including a brief business description, officers, segment data, major shareholders and auditor information, and accounting data items on a company-specific basis.

For an overview of the number of companies covered by country I have created an Excel file which is available here.

Worldscope is available through (at least) the following two database suppliers:

• LexisNexis:
  The Online help information lists the following: total companies covered is +28,000 active and inactive companies in 54 companies. I called the LexisNexis helpdesk today to ask if this was still information was still current. Unfortunately nobody could tell me if the number of companies covered matches that of Datastream. The frequency of the updates is unclear. Each report covers the last reported 3 years of company data. You can download complete reports or parts of the financial data in excel for each separate report.
  
• Datastream:
  According to the newsletters of Datastream: total companies covered is 59211 of which 36876 are active and 22849 inactive companies in 68 countries. The database is updated each month. 1850 data items from the Worldscope database are covered. Much of the data for the companies can be downloaded to Excel using a single search request. Worldscope has data that for some companies goes back 20 years.

Author information: LinkedIn

02:48 PM - 23 December 2009