WRDS aggregates and retains content from a variety of data sources, public and commercial, and serves as a source of historical data from many vendors that themselves maintain only current information, and from vendors that distribute data only on offline, portable media like CDs and DVDs. Sources of WRDS data include CRSP, S&P Global Market Intelligence, Dow Jones, NYSE, SEC's Edgar, and Thomson Reuters, and more specialized sources such as BoardEx, FactSet, Hedge Fund Research, Markit, Ravenpack and GSI Online. The resource was initially developed in 1993 to support faculty research at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the service has since evolved to a tool for a global research community.
Institutional subscribers can choose to make all or a limited number of datasets accessible to local users from the complete set of WRDS datasets. The data products, datasets, and analytics that are available through WRDS include:
- 2iQ
- American Hospital Association
- Audit Analytics and OIA (Other Independent Audits)
- Bank Regulatory
- BoardEx
- Bureau van Dijk
- Calcbench
- CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange)
- comScore
- Cortellis Life Sciences Healthcare Data
- The Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)
- CSMAR
- CUSIP
- Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF)
- Dow Jones Average & Total Return Indexes
- ETF Global
- Eurekahedge
- Eventus
- FactSet
- Fama-French Portfolios & Factors
- Federal Reserve Bank Reports
- FTSE Russell Indexes
- GMI Ratings
- GOVPX
- GSIOnline
- Hedge Fund Research, Inc. (HFR)
- IHS Global Insight
- Infogroup
- Information Resources, Inc. (IRI)
- Institute for the Study of Security Markets (ISSM)
- ISS (formerly RiskMetrics)
- KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. (KLD)
- ktMINE
- Levin Associates Health Care M&A
- Markit
- Mergent Fixed Income Securities Database (FISD)
- MSRB
- Mutual Fund Links (MFLINKS)
- Nasdaq Trade and Quote (NASTRAQ)
- NYSE Trade and Quote (TAQ)
- OptionMetrics
- OTC Markets Group
- OTC Corporate Bond Transaction Data (TRACE)
- Pacific-Basin Capital Markets
- Penn World Tables
- Peters and Taylor Total Q
- Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX)
- ProPublica
- RavenPack
- RepRisk
- Research Quotient
- S&P Global Market Intelligence
- SK&A Healthcare data
- SAS
- Sustainalytics
- Thomson Reuters
- Toyo Keizai
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
- WRDS SEC Analytics Suite
- Zacks
Through partnerships with vendors, WRDS also provides several analytic tools including: WRDS SEC Analytics Suite for customizing datasets of SEC filings; WRDS Quant Alpha Platform for discovery of stock anomalies; and the Wharton School's Online Trading & Investment Simulator (OTIS), a trading and investment simulation platform.