# Under what conditions does FinancialData return a ::notent message?

I tried retrieving FinancialData for a few companies but when I tried doing it for NTDOY, I couldn't. As of 25/12/2012, querying

 FinancialData["PK:NTDOY"]


yields

FinancialData::notent: PK:NTDOY is not a known entity, class, or tag for FinancialData. Use FinancialData[] for a list of entities.

However, this is weird for two reasons. Firstly, PK:NTDOY is included in the list of financial instruments Mathematica supposedly has data for:

 FinancialData["*NTD*"]


yields

 {"JK:INTD", "NASDAQ:GKNTD", "NASDAQ:UNTD", "PK:ANTD", "PK:NTDMF", "PK:NTDOF", "PK:NTDOY"}


Secondly, if I try using free-form input, e.g.

= NTDOY price from 25 December 2011 to 25 December 2012

I get the same (notent) output; on the other hand, if I click on the orange "Show all results" plus symbol, I get a WA-like tab filled with meaningful data, even though sometimes Mathematica crashes while computing.

So my question is: what does FinancialData truly mean when it states that something is not "known"? Is this a software bug or is it simply that more data is available to WolframAlpha than is to Mathematica?

(I'm using Mathematica 8.0.1.0, by the way.)

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I think it's currently listed "NTDOY" without the PK. On Google, it's PINK:NTDOY, but on Yahoo it says it's been renamed. Try FinancialData["NTDOY"], which works for me. I don't know why it still lists "PK:NTODY" as a valid entity. – Michael E2 Dec 25 '12 at 22:46
The list of instruments given by FinancialData["*"] isn't updated very frequently. In fact, I believe it would only be updated when the paclets are updated. If the availability of a ticker has recently changed, then it may be on the list and no longer work. The best way to see what kind of information is available is to really just look at Yahoo Finance. – Searke Feb 13 '13 at 16:50
@Searke, that looks like an answer to me... – J. M. Apr 28 '13 at 16:20

NTDOY is the Nasdaq ticker for the Nintendo ADR. Once it's traded on an American stock exchange you don't need to define the stock exchange previously (i.e., you don't need to use PK: before the NTDOY ticker).

So, the only thing you have to do is to use

FinancialData["NTDOY"]


and Mathematica will retrieve the current price:

11.79

EDITED

You have to be careful when using non-American stock exchanges... For instance, try to find the Petrobras stock on Mathematica (ticker = PETR4):

FinancialData["*PETR4*", "Lookup"]


{SA:PETR4}

But, in fact you can use two different tickers for the same stock! See:

FinancialData["SA:PETR4"]


19.39

or you can also try

FinancialData["PETR4.SA"]


19.39

So the results are the same! I mean, the SA: prefix is the same as the .SA suffix for the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange (Brazil), although it's not documented by Mathematica.

I think this is also true for other stock exchanges.

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