Database Offers Info On Stock OptionsDatabase Offers Info On Stock Options

Academic researchers now have unprecedented access to historical data on stock options thanks to an arrangement between the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and options research firm OptionMetrics. Wharton has licensed OptionMetrics' Ivy database, which features 35 Gbytes of data on all U.S. equity and index options collected since January 1996.

The options data will be available through the Wharton Research Data Services system, a 5-year-old Web-based research tool that provides academic researchers with access to more than 1 terabyte of data from such sources as the Center for Research in Security Prices, Standard & Poor's Compustat, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the New York Stock Exchange. The system is available only to academic institutions, with memberships running $30,000 a year. "We make available stuff that no one would want to store," says Michael Boldin, director of the system.

To access the options data, members of the Wharton research system also will need to reach a licensing agreement with OptionMetrics. Among the more than 70 member institutions are Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Harvard University, and the London Business School.