README.md

---
license: apache-2.0
language:
  - en
pretty_name: US Security Master — dated identifiers for SEC filers
size_categories:
  - 1M<n<10M
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
tags:
  - finance
  - sec
  - edgar
  - security-master
  - cusip
  - ticker
  - point-in-time
  - survivorship-bias
  - ziplime
configs:
  - config_name: issuers
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: "data/issuers/*.parquet"
  - config_name: identifiers
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: "data/identifiers/*.parquet"
  - config_name: cusip_map
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: "data/cusip_map/*.parquet"
  - config_name: observations
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: "data/observations/*.parquet"
  - config_name: pit
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: "data/pit/*.parquet"
---

# US Security Master

Which company a ticker belonged to, on a date. Which filer a CUSIP points at.
What a company used to be called.

**23 553 filers · 144 054 identifier spans · 10 061 784 dated observations ·
74 814 CUSIP–ticker pairs · 1960 to 2026**

This is the glue for the rest of the family. Every other ZipLime dataset keys
on the SEC's CIK, which never changes — and every price series, broker feed and
research note keys on a ticker, which changes all the time. Joining the two
with today's mapping is the quiet way to put the wrong company's history into a
backtest.

The pipeline lives in [`recipe/`](recipe/) at the same revision as the data.
See [PIPELINE.md](PIPELINE.md) for the method and its limits.

## The problem this exists for

| | |
|---|---|
| Filers that changed ticker | **6 410** of 23 553 |
| Filers that changed name | **11 439** |
| Tickers held by more than one company over time | **2 224** of 26 895 |

A ticker is not an identity. `PLUM` can be one company until 2014 and another
from 2019, and a strategy that resolves it by today's map reads the second
company's fundamentals against the first company's prices for the earlier
years. This dataset says which was which, and when.

```python
import polars as pl

spans = pl.read_parquet("data/identifiers/*.parquet")

def cik_for(ticker: str, on: str) -> str | None:
    hit = spans.filter(
        (pl.col("kind") == "ticker")
        & (pl.col("value") == ticker)
        & (pl.col("valid_from") <= pl.lit(on).str.to_date())
        & (pl.col("valid_to") >= pl.lit(on).str.to_date())
    ).sort("observations", descending=True)
    return hit["cik"][0] if hit.height else None

cik_for("FB", "2015-06-30")     # Meta, under its old symbol
cik_for("META", "2015-06-30")   # None — the symbol did not exist yet
```

## What a span means, and what it does not

`valid_from` and `valid_to` are the **first and last filing that stated the
identifier**, not registry dates. Nobody publishes the day a ticker changed
hands. A gap inside a span means nobody filed, not that the identifier lapsed,
and `observations` says how much evidence stands behind it.

Two flags answer two different questions:

* `is_latest_for_filer` — the newest value this company gave. Use it to ask
  *what did this company last call itself*, including companies that stopped
  filing in 2011.
* `is_current` — that, **and** the company still files. Use it to ask *who owns
  this ticker now*. Defining current without the second condition left 1 218
  tickers current for two companies at once; with it, 54 remain, and those are
  genuine dual filers.

## The CUSIP bridge

13F and N-PORT identify a holding by CUSIP. Everything else identifies a
company by CIK. No free source maps between them, so this one is built:
settlement records tie a CUSIP to a ticker on a date, filings tie a ticker to a
filer over a span, and the two compose.

| Match | Rows | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `ticker_and_dates` | 23 074 | the ticker matched and the dates overlap — **high** |
| `cusip6_inherited` | 13 105 | another security of the same issuer resolved — **medium** |
| `ticker_only` | 4 145 | the ticker matched, the dates do not overlap — **low** |
| `name_conflict` | 683 | a fund, and the filer holding its ticker was never called anything like it — **none** |
| `unmatched` | 33 807 | no filer found — **none** |

**53.9% of CUSIP-ticker pairs resolve to a filer; 74.8% weighted by how often
the CUSIP appears in settlement records, counting only the pairs that are not
funds — which is what the build gates on.** Measured against real 13F holdings,
the matched set covers **83.1% of holding rows and 87.5% of position
value** (82.2% and 86.7% keeping only `high` and `medium`).

Every one of those was higher a release ago — 68.8%, 78.7%, 93.9% and 95.0% —
because the issuer-prefix rule was lending fund families a stranger's CIK and a
coverage metric counts a wrong filer as a hit. Dropping the wrong matches reads
as lost coverage. [PIPELINE.md](PIPELINE.md) has what happened.

Counting raw CUSIPs understates it badly, and the reason is worth knowing:
10 679 of these rows are funds. A fund settles like a share, and most file
nothing under a ticker of their own — `IVV`, `IWM` and `VOO` are lines inside a
registrant trust's filings, not filers. They carry `looks_like_fund = true` and
are excluded from the coverage the build gates on. Some funds *are* their own
trust and do file: `SPY`, `GLD`, `DIA` and `MDY` each resolve to the trust that
issues them, and 749 fund rows carry a CIK on that basis. A fund that matched a
company only by sharing its ticker is refused instead: `MDY` pointed at Midway
Gold until the name check was added.

A further 8 527 rows carry a settlement symbol that nobody trades under —
clearing placeholders (`XCEMZZZZ`), preferred lines (`BACPRS`), CUSIP fragments.
They are real evidence about the instrument and are marked
`standard_symbol = false` rather than dropped.

```python
bridge = pl.read_parquet("data/cusip_map/*.parquet")
holdings = holdings.join(
    bridge.filter(pl.col("match_confidence").is_in(["high", "medium"]))
          .select("cusip", "cik"),
    on="cusip", how="left",
)   # now 13F joins to fundamentals and insider trades on `cik`
```

## Configs

| Config | Rows | What one row is |
|---|---|---|
| `issuers` | 23 553 | one filer: current name, ticker, industry, and how long it has filed |
| `identifiers` | 144 054 | one identifier and the span of filings that stated it |
| `cusip_map` | 74 814 | one CUSIP, the ticker it settles under, the filer behind it |
| `observations` | 10 061 784 | one dated statement — the evidence the spans are built from |
| `pit` | 144 054 | one point-in-time identifier event, plus a Delta table for ziplime |

`observations` is published so that anyone who disagrees with how the spans
were derived can derive their own. It is the only honest way to ship a
judgement.

## Where the evidence comes from

| Source | Observations | What it gives |
|---|---|---|
| Form 4 filings, via [ZipLime/insider-trading](https://huggingface.co/datasets/ZipLime/insider-trading) | 8 129 289 | the ticker a company printed on a filing, on that day — the only free source of ticker **history** |
| XBRL filings, via [ZipLime/company-fundamentals](https://huggingface.co/datasets/ZipLime/company-fundamentals) | 1 901 363 | names, former names with change dates, industry, incorporation, fiscal year end |
| SEC `company_tickers_exchange.json` | 31 132 | today's listings, including companies that never filed a Form 4 |
| SEC fails-to-deliver records, 411 archives | 23.5M records | CUSIP to ticker, twice a month since 2004 |

`company_tickers.json` alone is what most projects use, and it is a snapshot:
it states today and carries no past, so a company that changed symbol appears
under the new one for its entire life. The history here comes from four million
filings that each stated a symbol on a known date.

## Coverage and honest gaps

* **81% of filers have a ticker; 93% of *active* filers do.** The rest are
  funds, trusts and private filers that never printed one.
* **Exchange is sparse** — 8 228 spans. Filers rarely name the venue, and SEC's
  current map only covers live listings.
* **Coverage starts in 1960** only because a filing header stated a name change
  from then. Ticker evidence effectively begins in 2006 with Form 4, and
  identifiers before that are not in EDGAR to be found.
* **A span is evidence, not a registry.** See above.
* **Most fund CUSIPs do not resolve, by construction.** See above.
* **54 tickers are current for two filers.** Dual filers and reorganisations
  mid-transfer; the raw observations let you decide.

## Provenance and updates

Sources: SEC EDGAR (Form 4 and XBRL filings, both via sibling ZipLime
datasets), `company_tickers_exchange.json`, and the fails-to-deliver
files — all US Government works in the public domain.

Rebuilt weekly, Monday 07:40 UTC, by a Hugging Face Job
([`jobs/run.py`](jobs/run.py)) that lints, tests, rebuilds, verifies and only
then publishes.