History is initially provided from 1 January 10 years ago (for Silver), or 20 years ago (for Gold). Each year after that, on 1 January, the history extent is reset.

What is the US stock coverage prior to 2000 and thereafter?

Historical coverage of all US-listed securities becomes less complete further back in time, mostly due to limitations in the trade-reporting requirements imposed at the time.

Coverage of NYSE-listed securities coverage is excellent back to 1950. Coverage of AMEX-listed is excellent back to around the mid-1960s.

Nasdaq coverage prior to 1982 is relatively limited. Before Nasdaq developed into a formal exchange-style market, securities were generally considered part of the over-the-counter (OTC) market, where trade-reporting requirements were less comprehensive. Coverage improved from 1982 as more companies became joined the Nasdaq National Market System and became subject to additional trade-reporting requirements.

Nasdaq coverage improved further in 1992 with the introduction of the Nasdaq SmallCap Market and its associated reporting requirements.

Non-Nasdaq OTC coverage is considered incomplete prior to the mid-1990s, largely because there were no mandated trade-reporting requirements.

After 2000, coverage is excellent for the security types cover.

What is the Canadian stock coverage prior to 2000, and aftewards?

During the early to late 1990s, Canadian stocks could be traded at one or more exchanges independently (Alberta, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver), but there was a province-based regulatory designation for each public company. Trading was usually (but not always) concentrated at the regulatory-designated province exchange. Norgate has significant coverage across across all of these venues.

In 1999, the Canadian exchanges were significantly restructured by Government decree. The Toronto Exchange became the large- and mid-cap listing venue. Vancouver and Albert stock exchanges merged to become the Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX) which was designated as a vnue for smaller cap/speculative securities with less stringent listing rules. Montreal Exchange transformed into an options and futures exchange. In 2002, the Canadian Venture Exchange was acquired by the Toronto Stock Exchange and the listing venue was renamed TSX Venture.

Canadian Trading and Quotation System (CNQ) started as an alternative trading and quotation venue in 2003 and, in 2004, became a listing venue. It rebranded to Canadian National Stock Exchange in 2008 and rebranded again in 2014 to Canadian Securities Exchange. Norgate has full coverage of all listings on this exchange.

NEO Exchange commenced trading in March 2015. It rebranded to Cboe Canada in Apr 2023 following their acquisition. TMX Group have announced that they will acquire this exchange in 2026, so we expect another name change. Norgate has full coverage of all listings on this exchange.

Norgate's coverage represents consolidated trading across all venues (including ECNs) on which a security traded, including trades on different venues prior to 2000 where we have been able to source the data. After the restructure in 1999, coverage is excellent for all of the security types covered. Norgate's coverage represents consolidated trading across all venues (including ECNs) that a security was trading including trades at different/ECNs.

Accessing Data

Are there any rate limits or request limits?

There are no rate limits or request limits. Since the data is stored on your PC, the speed is only limited by the performance of your PC.

Symbology

What does it mean if a symbol has a prefix?

Symbol prefixes are used to identify items in the database that aren't exchange-traded. The following conventions apply:

        $ = Index
        # = Economic or Market Indicator (such as market breadth)
        % = Interest Rate
        @ = Cash Commodity
        & = Continuous Futures Contract

How are symbol overlaps between AU, CA and US stocks handled?

AU stocks are given the country suffix .au; CA stocks are given the country suffix .ca; US stocks have no country suffix.

What happens when a security changes its symbol?

The symbol changes in our database and all price history associated with the former symbol is contained within the new symbol, providing a continuous price series. The old symbol is no longer part of the database.

What happens when a stock market security delists and is no longer tradeable?

When a stock market security is no longer tradeable, it gains a suffix of -YYYYMM indicating the year and month of the last trading day. This prevents symbol overlaps.

Further information: On US stocks, often when a stock is delisted from a major exchange (such as NYSE) for listing violations, it starts trading as an OTC stock (sometimes with a different symbol). It won't gain the -YYYYMM suffix until it really is no longer tradeable. As an example, Enron was delisted from NYSE in January 2002 but continued to trade on the OTC market under the symbol ENRNQ until November 2004. At that time the symbol changed to ENRNQ-200411.

Do you provide information on prior symbols used by a security?

No, only the current symbol is provided. Commentary: Since the historical price data is prepended to the new symbol for each security, this is typically not needed. For the purposes of backtesting on a survivorship bias-free universe (available at the Platinum and Diamond levels only), the "universe" of securities available to a typical trader is the same, even if some securities had symbol changes.

Do you have a static, unchanging unique identifier for each security that survives symbol changes, exchange/OTC transitions, delisting and other corporate actions?

Yes, in supported software packages and environments, we provide access to a field called assetid. This field does not change over the lifetime of a security, including through symbol changes, company name changes, moves between exchanges, transitions to or from OTC trading, delisting, or other corporate actions.

There are no other unique identifiers provided.

Historical Index Constituents

Do you sell, or provide, lists of historical index constituents?

No. However, we provide useful access to index constituents via supported environments.

Information concerning historical index membership is only available to subscribers (at the Platinum level or above) who are using a back-testing/analysis platform such as AmiBroker, RealTest , Wealth-Lab, or Zipline that can be linked to our database via a plugin/integration, or via other supported environments such as Python.

There are no lists showing historical additions to, or removals from, an index. Nor are there any lists showing constituents at year-end, but you can certainly get your analysis software package/environment to produce this.

Instead, the plugins can deliver a true/false answer to the question of whether any stock (either currently listed or delisted) was a member of an index on any day. This allows index membership to be stipulated, for example, as a buy condition in a system test.

Further explanation

Do you provide "temporary inclusions" on historical index constituents?

Temporary inclusions (aka temporary lines) are not included in historical index constituents. These are typically events, such as demergers, where a demerged company is temporarily an index constituent for a limited period (such as one day) and is then removed.

Do you provide announcement dates for historical index constituents?

No - this information is not provided.

Stocks Price, Volume, Turnover

What does consolidated tape price data mean?

The data provided for US and Canadian stock markets is known as the Consolidated Tape, where trades from all trading venues (not just the listing venue) are incorporated into the daily data we put out. In general, only regular "last sale eligible" trades performed during regular trading hours contribute towards OHLC. All of these trades plus pre-market, post-market, block trades and other complex order types contribute to Volume and Turnover.

For Australian stocks, only ASX trades are provided.

The exact rules are determined for US stocks by the Consolidated Tape Association and UTP Plan, and for Canadian stocks by the Canadian Securities Administrators.

What does Open represent for stocks?

The open represents the first regular "last sale eligible" trade reported to the consolidated tape from any venue including ECNs (US & Canada). For Australia it represents the open of the stock on the ASX - which can be the result of the opening price auction, or if there were no crossing trades in the auction, then the first eligible trade of the day.

What do Volume and Turnover represent for stocks?

Volume represents the sum of the volume from each trade, including pre- and after-hours trades. Turnover (sometimes called dollar volume) is the sum of each trade's price multiplied by the volume.

What price adjustment methods do you offer for stocks?

What events count as "Capital reconstructions" and "Special Distributions"?

Capital reconstructions include splits & consolidations (reverse splits), bonus issues (stock dividends) and rights issues.
Special distributions include capital returns, special dividends and distributions associated with spin-offs.

Adjustment factor calculation

Historical data

Is the database static with regard to historical data?

No. Corrections and updates come through to us from our primary upstream suppliers and these are transmitted automatically. Other errors and omissions are corrected by us as soon as they are discovered.

Corrections may apply to any number of things, including:

Trade corrections/cancellations
Index prices and volumes
Listing status (listing venue, trade suspension and delisting)
Dividend type
Dividend ex-date
Sector/Industry classification
Surviving entity determination (mergers & acquisitions)

There is no notification of such corrections - they are applied to your database on a continuous basis whilst your subscription is active.

How are trade corrections/cancellations handled?

Trade corrections/cancellations are incorporated and can affect any of the open, high, low, close, volume and turnover fields.

Futures Price, Volume and Open Interest

What do Open, High, Low and Close represent for futures?

For all markets, except those with a "9" suffix (FDAX9, FGBM9, LEU9, LFT9 etc.), the close is the settlement price using the exchange's settlement determination rules.

The Open represents the first trade for the session and the High and Low are taken from the High and Low values, except as designated by the exchange. If the settlement falls outside the day's high-low range, then the high or low is adjusted as required.

What does Volume represent for futures?

Volume is the sum of all of the trades for the session. Certain events, such as Exchange for Physical, are included in this value. Volume is often provided as an estimate and subsequently amended.

What does Open Interest represent for futures and how timely is the data?

Open Interest means the number of active open contracts for that market. It is provided after the market closes, often the next day.

Indices Data

What do Volume and Turnover represent for indices?

Index volume and turnover are calculated by Norgate based upon the constituents in the index. The calculation uses point-in-time constituents.

Market Breadth Data

How is market breadth data calculated?

Market breadth data is calculated by Norgate based upon the constituents in the index. It uses point-in-time constituents. For certain breadth indicators, the volume and turnover represent the sum of volume and turnover for the constituents that have the condition described (e.g. the Advancing Issues series represents the number of stocks that have increased in price since the prior day, and the volume and turnover are the sum of the volume and turnover for all of those stocks).

The stock prices are adjusted using the "Capital reconstructions and special distributions" adjustment method.

Corporate Actions

Do you provide details on corporate action events such as splits and dividends?

No, not directly. Instead, they are (optionally) incorporated into the price data using the price adjustment methods. These methods adjust the price data to take into account the effect of the corporate action, and provide the user with a meaningful price time series to compare relative prices between two dates.

Listing, Listing Location, Mergers, Bankrcuptcy & Delisting Events

Do you provide details regarding historical listing location changes?

There is no historical information regarding exactly which exchange a security was listed on.

However, for US securities, at the Platinum and Diamond levels, we provide access to an indicator called "Major Exchange Listed" which provides a time series of when the stock was listed on a major exchange and when it traded as an OTC security. In the case of Enron, it was Major Exchange Listed on all dates up to 2002-01-11. From the next trading day (2002-01-14) until its last date of trading on 2004-11-17, this indicator will show it as non-Major Exchange Listed (i.e. trading on OTC). This indicator provides data back to 1990.

How are mergers handled?

For mergers, if there is a clearly identified "surviving entity" then the assetid is retained through this transition. The other entity is delisted. In the event of a "merger of equals" resulting in a new entity, then all merging companies will be delisted and a new entity (with a new assetid) created.

How are reverse mergers and SPACs handled?

A reverse merger typically involves a smaller entity (aka surviving entity) effectively taking over a larger entity whereby shareholders of the larger entity become entitled to shares in the smaller entity. This is the way that SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) operate. However, it can also happen with other types of Blank Check Companies and also shell companies.

If the target entity is not listed and the surviving entity is listed, Norgate continues the price data for the surviving entity. If the surviving entity is a "Blank Check Company" prior to the takeover, and this is a US company, then this will be reflected in the Blank Check Company time series.

If the target entity is listed and the surviving entity is listed, then the target entity is delisted and Norgate continues the price data for the surviving entity. If the surviving entity is a "Blank Check Company" prior to the takeover, and this is a US company, then this will be reflected in the Blank Check Company time series.

If the target entity is listed and the surviving entity is not listed on either an exchange or OTC, then Norgate continues the target entity's data.

How are bankruptcy and emergence-from-bankruptcy events handled?

If a US-listed company declares bankruptcy, trading can occasionally continue on the original listed exchange for a short period prior to delisting from that exchange. On the Nasdaq, it often gains a "Q" suffix too. Trading can then move to OTC. (e.g. Enron moved from NYSE:ENE to OTC:ENRNQ).

If a company emerges from bankruptcy, its stock history (and associated assetid) will only be continued if the original shareholders had some entitlement to equity in the new company. Price history is kept and any reverse split corporate actions will be used. This is quite a rare event.

However, where the original shareholders did not receive any equity in the new entity, the emerged entity is considered to be a new security and the original bankrupt entity is delisted.

Do you provide details about a delisting (such as a delisting return), and is this really important?

Norgate Data does not provide any information about the reason for delisting or delisting return (and it's probably not needed in most cases).

Norgate considers delisting to mean that a security is no longer tradeable within that country's equities trading environment.

There are several common reasons for delisting:

Takeover/Acquisition/Management buyout
Merger (as the non-surviving entity)
Voluntary liquidation
Listing downgrade from a major exchange (e.g. bankruptcy, financial irregularities etc.) to OTC, followed by subsequent deregistration by regulators from any form of trading.

It is highly unlikely that, as an active trader, you would have held the security indefinitely without participating in any of the events prior to delisting. For simulation purposes, most of our users apply a rule that closes any remaining position on the stock's final available trading bar if it becomes delisted (or the first bar after listing downgrade).

In live trading, an investor holding a position in a company that is being delisted because of a takeover or merger would ordinarily be aware of the event and take the appropriate action. Takeovers and mergers may offer several forms of consideration, including cash, shares, or a combination of both. As a result, there is no single value that could be supplied consistently for every event. In addition, the stock's final trading days are typically subject to substantial arbitrage activity, so using the final available bar is generally a reasonable approximation for backtesting purposes.

Where a stock is removed from a major exchange — more accurately described as being downlisted — it may continue trading on the OTC market - also known as OTC continuation. We continue to provide coverage in these circumstances. Some stocks survive a downlisting and are subsequently uplisted to a major exchange. For example, Navistar (formerly a Dow Jones Industrial Average constituent) moved from NYSE to OTC in early 2007 and moved back to NYSE in mid-2008. It was delisted in 2021 after it was acquired and appears as NAV-202106.

In a voluntary liquidation process, which can extend over years, the security often remains tradeable and all liquidation payments except the final liquidation payment are handled by Norgate as "special distributions." There is no information provided on events after a security delists.

Norgate provides a time series called Major Exchange Listed, which indicates whether a stock was listed on a major exchange or traded OTC on each date. A value of 1 indicates a major-exchange listing, while a value of 0 indicates OTC trading, and this can be used to determine a listing downgrade.

For example, Enron traded on the NYSE under the symbol ENE until Jan 10, 2002, and subsequently continued trading as an OTC stock under the symbol ENRNQ until November 17, 2004. The time series shows a "1" through Jan 10, 2002, and a "0" thereafter. This security is in our database under ENRNQ-200411.

Furthermore, it would be highly unlikely for a trend-following trading system to have retained a position in Enron until its downlisting. Companies experiencing significant financial distress also often leave major indices before they are removed from an exchange. Enron, for example, was removed from the S&P 500 on Nov 29, 2001, approximately six weeks before its NYSE downlisting.

I can't find company (insert name) or ticker (insert ticker) as a delisted stock. Why is that?

You may be assuming that a stock is necessarily associated with a particular company name and/or ticker. But company names and tickers are subject to change over the life cycle of a stock. Furthermore, a name or ticker originally associated with one stock can later be used by another. A stock exists in our delisted database under its last known company name and ticker and not under any previous names or tickers. A stock only has one history.

Show example: the life-cycle of America Online. This was a famous company with an iconic ticker - AOL.

Sometimes, a simple web search reveals this: "What happened to (insert name)?"

Fundamentals & Broker Consensus

Some stock market packages include "Fundamentals" such as market cap, shares float, EPS etc. Do you provide historical data for fundamentals?

No. Only the latest reported information is provided. No prior information is available at this time.

Do you provide historical data for "Broker Consensus"?

No. Only the latest aggregated information is provided. No prior information is available at this time.