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WRDS: Wharton Research Data Services: CRSP Basics

WRDS is the premier academic resource for bulk access to stock market, company financial, and economic data.

Access Instructions

WRDS use is restricted to authorized UST faculty, staff, and students. Commercial use is not permitted.

Current Students, Faculty, and Staff Access Only:

Hit the "Register" link in the top menu bar and submit a request for your individual username and password to access WRDS.  The request will be sent to the WRDS administrators at St Thomas for review.  We will process your request upon receipt.

  1. Go to http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu
  2. Below the login box, click "Register for a WRDS account".
  3. Fill out the account request form.
  4. Click "Register".
  5. Your request will be processed within a couple of days.

Note: WRDS is instituting Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) beginning at the end of November 2022. You will need to verify your email, register for a new account with Duo Security, and then decide whether to use their mobile app or the web interface to do the two-factor authentication. You will know when you need to register a device for two-factor authentication if, when you log in to WRDS, a message appears alerting you that you need to enroll. | 2FA Instructions

Links for using CRSP

Once you have registered for access to WRDS using the instructions on this page, access CRSP and more in-depth user information using the links below.

CRSP Overview

The Center for Research in Security Prices, CRSP, is a research center at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. It maintains the most comprehensive collection of security price, return, and volume data for the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ stock markets. Additional CRSP files provide stock indices, beta- and cap-based portfolios, treasury bond and risk-free rates, and mutual fund databases. It also provides CRSP/Compustat Merged Database, a database that simplifies matching COMPUSTAT financial data to the CRSP security price data. CRSP is the leading source for the most comprehensive and accurate historical US databases available.

CRSP's unique and permanent security and company identifiers, PERMNO. and PERMCO., offer uninterrupted time-series analysis by tracking securities across time, regardless of identifier changes to CUSIP, ticker, company name, SIC Code, and exchange. This feature permits accurate time-series and events studies.

The CRSP data files are proprietary, the data copyrighted and usage restricted to personal or academic use in accordance with permissions as identified at http://www.crsp.com.

Getting Started with CRSP

Here are the basic steps for starting a search within CRSP

Click on CRSP within the current subscriptions of WRDS. 

We'll use CRSP to find historical daily pricing for a company within the daily stock file as an example. Follow a similar procedure to find other datasets.

Select the dataset of your choice.  Here we chose the CRSP Daily Stock File. 
Start with the dates, then move down the menu for other variables.  Use the Code Lookup tool to find the proper company codes. 

 

Some helpful hints: 

  • Don't make your search too narrow. 
  • It's best practice to download the data in XML Excel file format.