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Identifying Historical Index Constituents with Bloomberg Identifiers

Article Quant Q&A · Author: siegel
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Summary

The document concerns building a survivorship-aware historical equity database for strategy simulations. The question is how to identify every security that has belonged to an index when ticker symbols may be reused over time. It asks whether Bloomberg can provide FIGIs for historical index constituents, using the Russell 2000 as an example.

The response describes adding identifier fields to a Bloomberg membership display. FIGI is available as a selectable field, but the contributor reports that it returned an error in their case. CUSIP and ISIN fields did display and may help distinguish securities whose ticker symbols are reused. The response suggests contacting Bloomberg, since the FIGI error could reflect the contributor’s access permissions. This is a practical interface tip rather than a complete data retrieval procedure: it does not explain how to export a full constituent history, verify identifier continuity, or handle corporate actions and delisted securities. Availability may depend on the user’s Bloomberg entitlements.

Key ideas

  • Ticker symbols can be reused, making them unreliable as the sole key for historical constituent data.
  • Bloomberg membership displays allow users to add identifier fields such as FIGI, CUSIP, and ISIN.
  • The contributor encountered an error when requesting FIGI but could display CUSIP and ISIN.
  • Identifier availability may depend on Bloomberg permissions, so users may need to ask the provider.

Tags

EquitiesBacktestingUS markets
Full text
# Historical index components (FIGIs) from bloomberg?


# Historical index components (FIGIs) from bloomberg?












In order to run strategy simulations, I am trying to build a database of historical equity data using Bloomberg. I can pull the ticker symbols corresponding to the components of an index at any point in time, but since ticker symbols get reused, I am concerned that I won't be able to create an exhaustive list of all the stocks that have ever been in an index (Russell 2000 for example). I want to pull the FIGIs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Instrument_Global_Identifier Of the index components. Does anyone know how to do this?

## Answer by Alex C (score 1, accepted)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/21865

If you do MEMB you will see a button near the upper right labeled "4) FIELDS". If you press this button you can add columns to the display. For example you can select Descriptive / Identification / Identifiers / Bloomberg / Financial Instrument Global Identifier. When I do it the column unfortunately shows ERROR(5) whatever that means. However I can select CUSIP or ISIN and shows those identifiers, which might also solve your uniqueness problem. Might be good to call Bloomberg on this. It is possible that I am not authorized to access the FIGI, you might be.

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