API Documentation

Overview

NYSE, AMEX, Toronto, and the Canadian Venture exchange use special suffixes for equity and bond symbols to differentiate between classes or types of symbols. The majority of suffixes are used to denote a separate class or series of stock and/or preferred stock. NxCore appends a '.' (period) or '/' (forward slash), followed by one or more suffix characters. A period is used for suffixes when the root symbol is likely to be present and not using the suffix would result in a symbol collision. For example:

• preferred (often combined with class/series -- preferred prefix always comes before)
• warrant (sometimes combined with class/series -- warrant prefix always comes before)
• rights
• units
• convertible
• class or series (class and series mean basically the same thing -- though one stock won't use both)

A forward slash is used for suffixes that are temporary in nature and/or describe a special attribute of the instrument. Examples include:

• "When Issued"/"When Distributed" - When stock is finally issued/distributed, the suffix simply disappears.
• "Called" - Usually once a symbol is called, it remains so until it no longer trades and becomes delisted.
• "Ex" - "Dividend"/"Distribution"/"Interest" etc. Though rarely used today, the suffix was temporary in nature.

Common Suffix Combinations

A few suffixes are combined, such as Preferred and Class or Series. Although it is possible that more than two suffixes could combine, in practice it is rare, as when a Preferred Class/Series stock is "called" (ABC.PR.A/CL) or issued (ABC.PR.A/WI). Preferred always comes before Class/Series, and suffixes with periods (.) always come before suffixes with forward slashes (/). Note that historic symbol character length is 8, so symbols that exceed this limit may be truncated.