Your guide to navigating WRDS resources.
Combining Data, Analytics, Research, and Technology
WRDS has created tools and documentation for researchers at every experience level. These include:
- Curated online learning resources, including webinars, videos, and more.
- A range of analytics tools enabling you to quickly answer the most critical questions with your data.
- Step-by-step guides on how to access and manipulate WRDS data using programming languages.
Finding the Right Data
What kind of data are you looking for? Do you need institutional holding data? Company fundamentals? Stock prices? Start by learning how to find the data you need on WRDS by concept.
Video Tutorials
Introduction to the Most Commonly Used Databases
Take a guided tour through our datasets using video learning. This first sample video introduces the basics of CRSP, the most comprehensive collection of security price, return, and volume data for the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ stock markets. Each video has an accompanying slide deck.
The Additional Video Tutorials link above takes you to the larger repository housing all WRDS video tutorials and slide decks — including — but not limited, to videos on:
Videos on Advanced Research Topics
In addition to the introductory videos, our video library houses tutorials on more advanced research topics. For example, this video demonstrates how to use WRDS Event Study in order to measure the impact on the value of a firm resulting from an event. As with the introductory videos, this video also has a link to a supplemental slide deck.
Research Applications
Citing real-life case studies, our WRDS experts share their proven best practices, based on 25+ years of experience. These Research Applications provide you with sample code that replicates published papers in various topics, such as:
- Portfolio Construction and Market Anomalies
- Risk Factors and Industry Benchmarks
- Risk and Valuation Measures
- Institutional Ownership
- Linking Databases
Each application reviews the major findings of the original paper, and presents the sample code (SAS and Python) that replicates the major findings of the paper. Summary table and plots are also included.
WRDS Analytics
WRDS Analytics are powerful tools designed to support you in your research. These include commonly used metrics derived from the raw data. Many analytics tools are computationally expensive due to programming complexity or sheer data size. Here, they are easily available through your browser.
Click the link below for a directory of all the analytics tools, or just click the Analytics tab at the top of the main menu.
Programming with WRDS Data
Your research goals may include accessing and manipulating WRDS data using programming languages, such as SAS, Python, R, MATLAB, and Stata. We have created a series of step-by-step guides for the more popular languages, explaining how to access the data using:
- Personal computers
- The Web
- The WRDS Cloud
Recently, we have added instructions for JupyterHub and RStudio Server. This link takes you to a directory of all our programming documentation, including how WRDS data is structured in PostgreSQL.
Using Manuals and Overviews
At the top of each web query page you will find a box labeled “Manuals and Overviews.” These manuals and overviews contain detailed information, as well as FAQs for that database. For quick reference, the link below takes you to a directory of all the Manuals and Overviews.
Accessing the Research Home Page
Finally, just access our home page for researchers using the Research tab on the top menu to accelerate your journey and amplify your research skills.