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Finding Current and Historical FTSE 100 Constituents

Article Quant Q&A · Author: Keval
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Summary

The document addresses how to obtain the current companies in the FTSE 100 for an application displaying their latest closing prices. It identifies several potential sources: Bloomberg’s BEQS function through a Terminal subscription, and the London Stock Exchange’s public list of current constituents. It also notes that index providers commonly publish current holdings, while historical membership and constituent weights are harder to access and may require paid data.

The responses distinguish a current constituent list from a reliable historical index record. Changes visible in revisions to a public page may help trace some past membership, but they are not presented as a complete historical dataset. Index membership can temporarily fall below its stated size after a bankruptcy, delisting, or merger, until the index provider selects a replacement. The document gives data-sourcing pointers, but it does not provide an API specification, ticker mapping, or a method for retrieving historical constituents systematically.

Key ideas

  • The London Stock Exchange publishes a list of current FTSE 100 constituents.
  • Bloomberg BEQS is another route, but it requires a Terminal subscription.
  • Historical constituents and index weights are generally harder to obtain and may cost money.
  • Index membership can temporarily fall below its target count after corporate or listing events.
  • The document does not provide an API or a complete historical data solution.

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EquitiesUS marketsStatistics
Full text
# Obtaining current list of companies in the FTSE 100 via an API


# Obtaining current list of companies in the FTSE 100 via an API












I'm making an app that displays the last close price of each ticker in the ftse 100 but for the life of me I can't seem to find an API that has this functionality. Particularly which companies currently fall in the ftse 100.

If anyone knows of methods of obtaining this data, your help is appreciated!

## Answer by Pceam (score 0)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/57119

You could use the Bloomberg BEQS function as part of the API, but you need to have a Bloomberg Terminal subscription.

## Answer by kurtosis (score 0)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/57125

The London Stock Exchange maintains a public list of current FTSE 100 constituents; however, getting historical components (much less weights) is more difficult.

You can look at revisions to the wikipedia page to get some of the changes; however, for good data on historical index composition you will need to pay money.

Finally, one note: indices do not always contain their full number of constituents. When a firm goes bankrupt, is delisted, or merges with another index constituent, the index temporarily has fewer firms. That gets fixed after the index maintainers decide which firm will replace those which left the index.

## Answer by Chris (score 0)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/57819

Most index distributors publish current holdings for their indexes but historical holdings are only generally available for a cost. Data distribution is the primary way index providers (eg, FTSE Russell in this case) make their money, they're not giving away this stuff for free.

Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.