Base or start date – datatype (BDATE)

BDATE provides the timeseries history start date for a quote.

In normal circumstances the BDATE should represent the listing date for a quotation, but there are exceptions:

• For the UK and Ireland markets the BDATE will be backdated 1 trading day to enable the IPO Price to be loaded, note – the rule is only applicable to primary quotes not secondary quotes.Return Index for UK and Ireland primary quotes is based on the IPO Price, for all other markets the close price of the listing date is used.

• The earliest BDATE for a market may represent when the coverage of that market was added to Datastream. For instance, the earliest start for UK equities is 30/12/1964 when market coverage added to Datastream, for Switzerland it is 01/01/1973 and for Bosnia & Herzegovina it is 03/08/2009.

• Under rare circumstances coverage for a security may not have been possible earlier in its listing history, the BDATE will be the earliest point in Datastream could start covering timeseries.

See also: