In the course of your research you may need to merge sets of data collected in one source, into another source. Unique identifiers can become useful. The tables below provide information for some selected company identifiers.
Caution:
Tickers are not always reliable as they can be reused. ISINs can identify a security but not the exchange on which it trades. Some databases may have missing identifiers.
DEFINITIONS for Universal Identifiers:
Ticker - Tickers can change at any time and can be reused by other companies. Companies can have multiple tickers. Tickers usually range from 1 to 4 characters. These are not a stable identifier and should be avoided.
Ticker Symbol Lookup (Yahoo Finance): Find ticker symbols of stocks and other securities
CUSIP- Issued by the Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures. A company’s CUSIP changes infrequently and CUSIPs are never reused. CUSIPs are used to identify securities in the USA and Canada. CUSIPS are 9 digits. The first 6 digits identify the issuing company, the seventh and eight digits identify the specific issue, and the ninth character is a check digit, CUSIP website, Wikipedia entry
SEDOL – Issued for UK companies only. SEDOLs are 7 characters with the last character being a check digit, Wikipedia entry
ISIN – International Securities Identification Number. These are issued to companies in all countries. Consists of 12 characters. The first 2 alphabetical characters identify the country of origin. The next nine digits are unique to the company (for US companies this will be the CUSIP, for UK firms the SEDOL). The final digit is a check digit, Wikipedia entry
CIK – Central Identity Key issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The identify companies that file with the SEC. The CIK is a ten-digit string. CIKs are never reused and are rarely changed. CIKs can have leading zeros, SEC entry
Proprietary Identifiers: Definitions
PERMNO – Used only by the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP). The PERMNO is a 5-digit number. It identifies a specific security issued by a company. Companies in CRSP are identified by a PERMCO. Codes are never reused.
GV Key – GV Keys are unique to Standard and Poor’s databases (Compustat and Capital IQ). This code represents a company. The GVKey is a 6-digit code and can have leading zeros. The GVKey does not change through the life of a company.
Capital IQ ID – These are unique to the Capital IQ database. IDs are numeric codes.
Company Extensions - list of abbreviations (Company legal forms)
This page provides definitions of company "extensions" and security identifiers. This section tells what these terms mean, and where they are used. If you don't know what country a company is based in, this list of identifers might help narrow your search.