Sample Search: Give the price of corn on a quarterly basis from January 1991 to the present.

The International Monetary Fund's data on commodities is not included in the Commodities category. It can be found under Economics. Use program 150Z for help in finding these codes. In the program number box, enter 150Z. Press Enter. Then select 97 for IMF DATA. Press Enter. Select 12 for IFS: COMMODITY PRICES.

NOTE: Searching commodities in Datastream is not as straightforward as are other categories of data. The format of the data you recover is very much dependent of the specific type of commodity you are researching. For example, the value of metal is expressed by its relation to a chosen index, by its cost per ton or by its cost per coin, while other items are measured by cost per barrel or bushel.

To find Datastream codes for commodities enter HELP CO? in the "Program Number" area in the main program window. Press Enter.

The new program window will prompt you to choose a category of commodities to search from a given list. Enter 11 for Grains. Press Enter.

You will then find the correct code number for corn in the resulting list of series. The code for Corn No. 2 yellow in Datastream is CORNUS2. The only datatype available is price.

This series, however, does not represent all types of corn. Rather, a particular type of corn was chosen as the measure for corn prices in Datastream: Corn No.2 yellow, given in cents per bushel. Finding an exact method of expression for a particular commodity is not always possible. Commodities searches, then, will likely begin by first determining what commodity Datastream records will satisfy your search.

Entering and running the macro for commodities is the same as the download macro. Please see the download.mac under Sample Downloads for a full description and images.