Hi,

I was wondering if there was a way to differentiate between Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and LEAP options in the symbol list file without having to know how to decode all the symbols? I know you can get monthly and LEAP symbols from the network feed but it would be a lot nicer and faster to be able to load all of this information from a file.

Thanks,
Joseph

Hello xen, when you refer to the "symbol list file", are you referring to the following?

http://www.dtniq.com/product/mktsymbols.zip

If so, then it doesn't seem to me like it would be possible without decoding the symbols.
If not, then please let me know which file you are referring to.

Yep, that's the file I'm talking about. It seems like you guys have this information in your databases so I'm wondering how hard it would be to include it in the file. It cetainly would reduce the amount of requests needed to figure all this out.

Thanks,
Joseph

The decoder ring:

http://www.dtniq.com/template.cfm?navgroup=supportlist&view=1&urlcode=32330

Thanks. Do you have any info on weekly, quarterly, and leaps?

Thanks,
Joseph

In the IQFeed documentation, you'll find that you can download different chain types. Download the leaps and decode them. Then download the 'nears' and decode them.

Right, I know I can get that information from the protocol. My question I put forth in this post was whether or not they could supply this level of detail in the symbol list. I was hoping they could because they already have this information in their database. Processing this mountain of information would be must faster if I could load it serially from a file instead of making 3000 requests to IQFeed.

Thanks,
Joseph

Have you downloaded the mktsymbols.zip file? This file supplies all symbols (options, equities, futures, ...). You'll find the info in the description field. This gets you all your info in one download.

If you use the magical decoder ring to decode the option chains, you'll get the same information. In this case, you'll need one download/decode per equity symbol of interest.

Yes, I've downloaded the file. I don't believe the file specifies whether or not a symbol is a leap, quarterly, or weekly expiration option. Also, if they were to supply that information I would probably need the exact day of expiration.

Joseph

In order to answer leap, quarterly, weekly, you'll need to know the symbol you are trading and how the options are defined. Anything 12 months or more is a leap. Everything else is a regular expiration, and the two digit code gives you the call/put and its expiration. There really isn't a difference between weekly or quarterly for equities. If you are looking at something other than equities, it should be readily apparent if you understand the nature of the beast, with respect to weekly or quarterly. In any case, with a little date based arithmetic, you'll be able to figure out if you have a near option or a far option (whether it is about to expire in a week or two, or whether the expiry is further out).

Well I'm not sure just looking longer than 12 months out is OK. What about a LEAP that was written a year or two ago that is going to expire in the coming months? How does one differentiate that option from a near month option without knowing all the details of the symbol?

Then use the protocol download to get the list of symbols in each of the two categories: regular and leap.

Right, but the whole point of this post was to ask if there was a way to get that information without having to make requests for every symbol. I was hoping they could supply this information in a text file or add it to the symbol list file.

Thanks,
Joseph

Reread the posts and review the indicated documentation. You'll note that when requesting all 'nears' with the protocol, you get _all_ option symbols at once. Do the decode and you have the information you desire with two protocol retrievals per equity symbol and zero lookups.

stargrazer, thanks for the link. I had forgotten that page existed.

Joseph, I don't have extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the servers, but I would guess that whatever process produces the mksymbols document simply doesn't have access to the extra data you are wanting (I don't think it is produced by the symbol lookup server).

With that said, we are always looking for ways to make our information available easier to our customers and will certainly take this suggestion into consideration for future development.