Finance Data Station

Berkeley Options Database Information

Database Name
Berkeley Options Database

Website
http://www.cboe.com
See Also:
http://www.in-the-money.com/pages/bodd.html

Current Versions/Years Available
The Berkeley Options Database has been discontinued, but we do have some old data available for use. As of this writing, 9/29/04, the Data Czar is working on finding out when the Finance Department subscription to the data ended in order to provide an idea of the range of dates for which we have this data available.

Overview of the Data
The Berkeley Options Data Base is a historical record of trades and quotes, time-stamped to the nearest second, for all standardized contracts traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The data base, which is derived from the CBOE's Market Data Retrieval tapes, begins in August, 1976 and continues through December, 1994.

Our Subscription
The database was discontinued. It was originally issued through the Haas School of Business, at the University of California, Berkeley, hence the name, but they are no longer issuing this data. The CBOE still makes some options data available through its site above, but the U of A no longer has any subscription to this database.

How to Access This Data
Berkeley Options data files are located on the finance server in the Z:\Options directory.

If you do not have the Z: drive mapped to your computer, email the Data Czar to have this done.

Database files are contained in a ZIP format. To access the data, download the zipped data files (in .gz format) off of the finance server and place them on your hard drive. Unzip the files using WinZip. The resulting file can be accessed using SAS or Fortran, in the same manner as a .txt file.

The data is organized in tabular format where each column is the same type of information, and each row (record) describes a single quote or trade. Quote records include the time stamp, option identification, bid and ask. Trade records include the time stamp, option identification, trade price and volume. Included in each record is the last reported trade price of the security underlying the corresponding option. The size of the data base is several gigabytes for every year.

Data Czar Notes
A guide for the Berkeley Options Database can be accessed at:
http://www.in-the-money.com/pages/bodbguide.htm
or the pdf/doc file can be downloaded from the following website:
http://www.in-the-money.com/pages/bodd.html

Related References:
Benesh, Gary A., and Bill Compton, “A Possible Source of Bias in Option Studies that use the Berkeley Options Data Base.”

Presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Finance Association.