Each financial securities are identified with a Symbol string. That string shall be unique and unambiguous within a certain Category. Usually the symbol will correspond to the official ticker name (like MSFT for Microsoft, LU for Lucent etc...). But some symbol encode additional information. Particular examples are the Options who needs to encode the expiration date and the strike price to distinguish the variants.
Symbols are always case insensitive and will never exceed 64 characters.
Anyone can freely re-use this guideline without any obligation towards TA-LIB.
Someone may wonder why to define "yet another mapping" of the symbols. The advantage of the TA-LIB Category/Symbol mapping is you can (and should) simply re-use the official ticker symbol provided by the exchange. Since the category isolate the symbol within the name space of the exchange, there is no need to name differently the symbol because it collides with another security on another exchange.
Here is an example of the current data source mess for the Euro Notional Future provided on the MATIF exchange (French international futures and options exchange). The official symbol is 'ELT':
| Data Vendor | Symbol |
| ADP | NBD |
| Bloomberg [my]=maturity, [C or P]=Call or Put | MN |
| Bloomberg - 5 best prices | MN[my] < CMDTY > BBO |
| Bridge | fR@ELT |
| CMS | EN |
| CQG International | PNA |
| datastream | FTG |
| Digicall SA | MENm |
| Fides | MN |
| Fininfo | m;N |
| Future Source [C or P]=Call or Put | MNN |
| GL Trade | ELT |
| Reuters [my]=maturity | PTB: < F3 > |
| Reuters - 5 best prices | PTB [my] < F3 > |
| S & P Comstock [my]=maturity, [sss]=strike | qDN[my] |
| Telekurs | ELT |
| Telerate | (code page: 3211,3215) ME |
| Track Data | EN |
| Tradermade | E-Notion |
In that case, the TA-LIB symbol shall use the unambiguous and official 'ELT' abbreviation defined by MATIF.
A:Alphanumeric, D:Digit, +:Concatenation, |:Or, {}:Optional
| Symbol Type | Pattern | Comments |
| Stock / Index / Fund | Name | 20 char max |
| Future | Name + ExpirationDate | 28 char max. |
| Bond | Name + '-' + { 'C' | 'G' | 'M' } + MaturityYear | 24 char max 'C':Corp, 'G':Gov, 'M':Municipal |
| Equity Option | Name + ExpirationDate + OptionSuffix | 37 char max. |
| Index Options | Index + ExpirationDate+ OptionSuffix | 38 char max |
| Futures Options | Future + OptionSuffix | 37 char max |
| BondOptions | Bond + ExpirationDate+ OptionSuffix | 41 char max |
| Name | AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA | 20 char max |
| Month | 'JAN' | 'FEB' | 'MAR' | 'APR' | 'MAY' | 'JUN' | 'JUL' | 'AUG' | 'SEP' | 'OCT' | 'NOV' | 'DEC' | Exactly 3 letter. |
| Year | DDDD | Exactly 4 digits. |
| MaturityYear | DD | Exactly 2 digits. |
| ExpirationDate | ('-' + Month + Year) | '-CONT' | '-CASH' | Up to 8 char. |
| StrikePrice | DDDD{'.'}DD | Up to 6 digits with an optional dot. |
| OptionSuffix | '-' + ( 'C' | 'P' ) + StrikePrice | 9 char max 'C':Call, 'P':Put |
Can be up to 20 alpha-numeric character. Special character '_', '.' or space can be used.
Note: the dash '-' is a special character reserved for adding additional info to the symbol (see Options as an example).
Examples:
| Symbol Name | Description |
|---|---|
| MSFT | Microsoft Corporation |
| BE8123E1332 | Alcatel on Brussels exchange |
| INDU | Dow Jones Industrial (USA) |
| My_Composite_Group | A user defined name |
For USA mutual funds, simply use the SIPC ticker which is always compose of 4 alphabetic character followed by the character 'X'. At this point, no clear strategy is defined for Non-US mutual funds.
Same rule as a stock symbol, but with the expiration date being concatenated after a '-'. For a continuous contract use '-CONT' instead.
Examples:
| Symbol Name | Description |
|---|---|
| YX-SEP2001 | NYSE Comp Index contract for September 2001. |
| ELT-MAR2001 | Euro Notional Future on the MATIF. |
| YZ-CONT | Future on the 6% 10Year T-Note on the NYBOT. Continuous contract. |
| GAS_OIL-DEC2002 | Gas Oil future on the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) |
For the official abbreviation of the Future, please consult the exchange web site provided in the Category Guideline. Sometimes, when no official ticker are defined by the exchange, it is suggested to use the full name of the future (See the GAS_OIL example in the previous table).