NASDAQ OMX's NLS adopts Bloomberg's Open Symbology

The NASDAQ OMX Group, a provider of real-time and historical market data, has announced that the NASDAQ Last Sale Plus (NLS Plus) data feed has incorporated Bloomberg's Open Symbology (BSYM), a publicly available methodology for identifying financial securities across all global asset classes. By incorporating BSYM into its primary market data feed NASDAQ OMX aims to help clients streamline data integration within ticker plants and other internal systems and enhance data integration processes across their organizations.

NLS Plus provides real-time, intraday last sale data for all securities traded on The NASDAQ Stock Market NASDAQ OMX BXSM, NASDAQ OMX PSXSM and the FINRA/NASDAQ Trade Reporting Facility.

"Adopting Bloomberg's Open Symbology helps our clients better manage their symbol master files and enhance their data integration, giving customers better mapping capabilities than simply using the issue symbol," said Jeff Kimsey, Vice President of US Product Management for Global Data Products, NASDAQ OMX. "We were pleased to include this addition as one of the numerous enhancements made to our proprietary US equity feeds this year."

At the core of BSYM is the Bloomberg Global Identifier (BBGID), a 12-digit alpha-numeric identifier for financial instruments. The BBGID, covers nearly 180 million active and inactive securities and is available free of licensing fees or material impediments to usage.

"The inclusion of Bloomberg Symbology in NASDAQ OMX data marks progress for common clients demanding a consistent means of identifying financial instruments across front-to-back-end operations," said Peter Warms, Global Data Manager for entity content, corporate actions and symbology at Bloomberg. "By adopting Bloomberg's Open Symbology, NASDAQ OMX is helping our shared client base reduce costs and operational risk by making data integration and maintenance processes more efficient."