Search code examples
excelbloomberg

prevent Bloomberg from redirecting a ticker to another

The Bloomberg API is automatically redirecting tickers that do not exist to the closest one: (this excel formula for instance downloads "IP Index" instead of "IP Curncy")

=BDH("IP Curncy","PX_LAST","2/17/2010","3/17/2015")

This is error prone.. Is there a way to prevent this? (I would rather have a "not available")

Solution

  • This is a work around, not a real solution.

    The Bloomberg ticker + yellowkey is just one way to query for information from Excel, you can also use the security's BBGID in formulas in Excel. In this example, these two formulas will return the same value:

    =BDP("IP Index","PX_LAST")
=BDP("BBG002SBDB92 BBGID","PX_LAST")

    You can also go from the ticker + yellowkey format to the BBGID format by using this formula:

    =BDP("IP Index","ID135")

    and from the BBGID to ticker + yellowkey:

    =BDP("BBG002SBDB92 BBGID","DS587")

    Using the formulas above you can be sure of what you're querying. For example you can query for values of a ticker+exch and then make sure that the ticker+exchange representation is what you're expecting.