Source: https://databento.com/docs/faqs/instruments-and-products



# Instruments and products

Our documentation and web platform uses the terms **product**, **instrument**, and **listing** for different purposes.
This article clarifies the differences between these terms.

### Products

On Databento, a **product** (also called a parent product or parent in the context of futures or options) refers to any real or synthetic asset whose
data is provided by a market. A product describes a group of instruments
belonging to a given economic sector or market segment. Also, products are
often _fungible_, meaning they may be traded on more than one
venue. In the case of equities, this means that products and instruments are the same asset, in contrast
to derivatives such as futures and options products.

The search on our [home page]($PLATFORM_HOSTNAME) looks up products across our
dataset coverage. To find individual instruments, click on any of the products
in the search results.

A futures product for a certain underlying has a range of expirations.
To avoid ambiguity, we will refer to the collection of all expirations as a **parent**, and
specific expiration as an **instrument**. So, for example, `ES.FUT` is the parent of `ESM0` and `ESZ0`.
Note: we classify exchange-traded spreads between futures outrights as part of the futures products.

An options product for a certain underlying has a range of both expirations and strikes.
To avoid ambiguity, we will refer to the collection of all expirations and strikes as a **parent**,
and specific expiration with strike as an **instrument**. So, for example, `MSFT.OPT` is the parent of `MSFT20210205C210`.
Note: we classify option combinations as part of the options products.

### Instruments

On Databento, an **instrument** (also called a child instrument or child) is a tradable asset, real or synthetic, on a specific market.
Instruments define all attributes of what is traded, e.g. product complex, product group,
expiration, and strike price.

Some publishers use the term **security** in lieu of what we consider
an instrument. This becomes somewhat of a misnomer when applied to
derivatives, which are not strictly securities. As such, we prefer to use
the term **instrument** as it more broadly includes both securities
and derivatives.

Moreover, some markets provide multiple datasets which provide
different levels of visibility. Two different datasets from the same market
may exhibit different data for the same instrument. For instance, FX ECNs will
often provide a premium feed with full visibility of real-time trades across
all liquidity pools on the ECN as well as an entry feed with only delayed trade
prints for a subset of liquidity. Since we support multiple datasets from
the same market, we also need to distinguish if you're requesting data for EUR/USD
on the premium feed or the entry feed.

To resolve these identification issues, we use the term **listing** to refer
to a tradeable entity in a specific dataset from a specific publisher.
As such, we consider AAPL on NASDAQ TotalView-ITCH 5.0, AAPL on NYSE
OpenBook Ultra, and AAPL on NYSE Trades as three distinct _listings_. The
following table provides more of such examples.

### Listings

On Databento, a listing is an instrument specific to a certain venue, which is not transferable
or representable across other venues (_non-fungible_). While this makes a listing synonymous with
an instrument for equities, it's important to be mindful of the distinction if you intend on
extending into other asset classes.

|  | Equities | FX | Futures | Options |
| Product | `AAPL`, `MSFT` | `EUR/USD` | `ES.FUT`, `GE.FUT` | `MSFT.OPT`, `ES.OPT`, `EW1.OPT` |
| Instrument | `AAPL`, `MSFT` | `EUR/USD` *spot* | `ESM0`, `ESZ0` | `MSFT20210205C210`,`ESZ0 C3620`,`ESZ0 P3620`,`EW1Z0 C3500` |
| Listing | `AAPL` *on Nasdaq*, `AAPL` *on NYSE Arca* | `EUR/USD` *on Cboe SEF* | `ESM0` *on CME Globex* | `MSFT20210205C210` *on BOX*, `ESZ0 C3620` *on CME Globex* |