Originally Posted by: teachme

I am subscriber of end-of-day datalink packages.

There are 2 websites to download the symbols. 

https://www.metastock.com/customer/support/download/symbolutility.aspx

https://www.metastock.com/customer/support/download/Symbols.aspx

I am confused. What is the difference between the two?

Hi,

Symbol Utilities are locally stored data files for use with the DownLoader application. These are created as a convenience for users to get started downloading data quickly based on various data groupings (region, exchange, index constituents, etc.).

Symbol Files are the actual instrument lists for use both in MetaStock for online data requests (Data on Demand) and to create locally stored data files for use in the DownLoader (i.e. when you create new security files and click the "Look-up" button, you are accessing these lists).

Originally Posted by: teachme

Originally Posted by: MS Support

Originally Posted by: teachme

I am subscriber of end-of-day datalink packages.

There are 2 websites to download the symbols. 

https://www.metastock.com/customer/support/download/symbolutility.aspx

https://www.metastock.com/customer/support/download/Symbols.aspx

I am confused. What is the difference between the two?

Hi,

Symbol Utilities are locally stored data files for use with the DownLoader application. These are created as a convenience for users to get started downloading data quickly based on various data groupings (region, exchange, index constituents, etc.).

Symbol Files are the actual instrument lists for use both in MetaStock for online data requests (Data on Demand) and to create locally stored data files for use in the DownLoader (i.e. when you create new security files and click the "Look-up" button, you are accessing these lists).

The data content inside both are the same, right?

Hi,

We use the Symbol Files (Instrument Lists) to build the Symbol Utilities and we update both on a monthly basis. The Instrument Lists are essentially the entire universe of symbols, which total about  290,000.

I am not sure the exact count on all the Symbol Utilities combined, but we typically focus on the more popular groups of instruments, not the entire database. For example, there are about 56,000 indices in the Symbol Files, but we create a much smaller subset of these in the Symbol Utility files. Other groups like Pink Sheets (Which equal about 16,000 symbols) are not included in the Symbol Utilities. Other groups like FOREX I do not believe are included in any of the symbol utilities.

It is a good idea to keep your instrument lists up-to-date even if you use the Symbol Utilities in the event you want to create your own groups of locally stored symbols for data collection. When you set up a folder in the latest DownLoader application, you can right-click on the folder to 'Create new security...'. You will want to check-mark the "Multiple Selections" checkbox prior to clicking the "Look-up" button, which will allow you to see the various Instrument Lists and set up any additional data folders you might be interested in.