Traders' Roundtable

I have a quick question about the free historical data provided by this site. For some of the futures contracts data there are two text files, for example, BO20_10B.TXT and BO_0_10B.TXT. Could anyone explain what the difference between the two text files is?

They are different symbols. One is "BO" and the other is "BO2". Yes they really are different. You can prove it to yourself by subtracting the prices; the difference is not zero. Also, have a look at the last date in each file. Are they the same?

Blox sources its data (and symbol names) from CSI. They provide a file that holds all symbol information, which they called the "FactSheet". Their website presents it in three different formats, here's the Adobe Acrobat version: http://www.csidata.com/factsheets/commod.pdf

To help you find the two Bean Oil symbols in your example, one of them is "Commodity # 019" and the other is #411. Carefully note the slight difference in the names of the two instruments.

There was a post by Tim Arnold a couple weeks ago, in the Customer Support area of the site, talking about the reason: viewtopic.php?t=6170

That clears it up. Thank you.