The SASEXFSD Interface Engine

The ExtractEconData factlet provides access to a broad array of macroeconomic content, interest rates and yields, country indices, and various exchange rate measures from both the FactSet Economics and the Standardized Economic databases. The ExtractEconData factlet uses the options listed in Table 43.10 to extract Economic data items for a list of country IDs or for no country IDs over time.

The DBSOURCE= option specifies a standardized database source name, such as EWIN_ECON, GI_ECON, OECD_MEI, FDS_ECON, FDS_COM, or the default, a null string, which uses the Standardized Economic data (EWIN_ECON_RGDPR_Y). Use the IDS= option to specify one or more country IDs based on the database source. See Table 43.11 for the complete list of country IDs that work with the standardized codes for the FactSet Economics database.

Use the ITEM= option to specify an FQL item based on the database source. You can also use the ITEM= option with the downloading syntax for Economic Request Codes described in the FactSet Online Assistant, page ID 11794, and shown in Example 43.2. Example 43.2 uses the shorthand FQL syntax in the ITEM= option to retrieve the same time series data items.

The SASEXFSD engine supports retrieval of the following FQL_entities: ECON_EXPR_DATA, SPEC_ID_DATA, FDS_ECON_DATA, EIU_ECON_DATA, CNS_ECON_DATA, EURO_STAT_DATA, IBJ_NIKKO_DATA, IMF_IFS_DATA, NTCS_ECON_DATA, OECD_OTLK_DATA, OECD_MEI_DATA, ONS_ECON_DATA, TCB_BCI_DATA, TCB_CCI_DATA, CEIC_ECON_DATA, and CEIC_CHINA_DATA.

A FactSet representative can provide you with permissions to access the databases that contain the time series data that you are interested in. See Example 43.3 for an example of using ECON_EXPR_DATA. For more information about using ECON_EXPR_DATA and SPEC_ID_DATA, see the section “Downloading Economic Function Codes to Excel” in the FactSet Online Assistant, page ID 12308. You can replace options such as START=, END=, FREQ=, CONV=, DIST=, NFB=, and FUNCTION= by using the corresponding placement of each option’s value in the FQL downloading syntax. In this example, ITEM="FDS_ECON_DATA(’FRBIPSB50001’, -121,-1,m,step,average)" gives the database source name (FDS_ECON), time series name (FRBIPSB50001), start and end dates, monthly frequency, distribution (step), and conversion (average); no-feel-back defaults to 1.

See the ExtractEconData appendix, linked in the FactSet Online Assistant, page ID 16948, for the complete list of the data series codes available with the standardized FactSet Economics database. The data are available at monthly, quarterly, and annual frequencies, as denoted by the _M, _Q, and _Y suffixes in the code.

Use the FREQ= option to specify the frequency of the data, and use the DATES= option to specify a date range for selecting time series data. For more information, see the section “Frequency” in the FactSet Online Assistant, page ID 11794.

You can use the CONV= option to specify CONV=SUM, AVERAGE, AVERAGENP, or none (the default is none).

You can use the DIST= option to specify DIST=STEP (step distribution), EVEN, or none (the default).

You can use the NFB= option to specify your no-feel-back setting (0, 1, or 2) to indicate full feel-back, no feel-back (the default), or feel-back until most recent data point, respectively (do not fill in data past the last available data point).

You can use the FUNCTION= option to apply an economic function to the data values of the time series (such as FUNCTION=ZSCORE). For a list of economic functions, see the FactSet Online Assistant, page ID 12308.

The ORIENTATION= option supports only ETI, which is the default.