How to find data on Reuters quickly and easily - News

CHAPTER 3
THE STRUCTURE OF REUTERS DATA
CHAINS AND TILES
A chain or tile is a code that displays a set of related instruments, such as options
on a specific s<strong>to</strong>ck. With a chain or tile, you can display a whole set of instruments
using a single code.
SO WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHAIN AND A TILE?
The main difference between them is their retrieval method. Chains require the
chain key or F3 key, whereas tiles require the key, but we come <strong>to</strong> that in more
detail later.
All market sec<strong>to</strong>rs make use of either chains or tiles, but not both. The FX and
money market sec<strong>to</strong>rs use tiles, whereas most of the other market sec<strong>to</strong>rs use
chains. Both chains and tiles can show all constituents of an index, all delivery
months of a future, European spot rates, all at-the-money strikes of an option, all
world indices and so on.
A chain is defined either by Reuters or by the organisation that contributes the <strong>data</strong>.
A chain’s content and format and the fields displayed can only be changed by the
owners of the chain within certain limitations.
When you have a chain or tile on display, you can double-click on the code for any
individual instrument <strong>to</strong> view a full quote on that instrument. Equally, you can copy
one or more instrument codes and paste them in<strong>to</strong> a spreadsheet for further
processing.
17
HOW TO DISPLAY A CHAIN
There are three ways of displaying a chain:
• Double-click on any of the chain codes displayed in brackets, such as
. (All chain codes, when displayed, can be recognised by the 0# at
the beginning.)
• Simply type the chain code, then press the function key F3. This is your chain key.
It executes chain requests and au<strong>to</strong>matically inserts the prefix 0# in front of the
RIC. E.g. enter the RIC without the 0# e.g. .INDEX and press the F3 key <strong>to</strong>
request the code.
• You can enter the full command including the 0# and press , e.g. 0#.INDEX .
If you have any problems when calling up chains, make sure you have used the
correct syntax. See the chapter Error messages/permissioning for further
information.
Confidential