There are many different types of securities, including bonds and equities. Some securities are issued by companies, other are issued by the government or municipalities. One way investors can look up the specifics about a particular security is with the CUSIP number. The CUSIP, which stands for Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures, is akin to a social security number--it is a unique identifier which can be used to look up registered U.S. and Canadian companies, and U.S. government and municipal bonds. You can look up the CUSIP using a Bloomberg terminal.
Step 1
Open a database on Bloomberg Academic or Bloomberg Professional.
Step 2
Enter the ticker symbol for the stock. The ticker symbol is one to four letters which represent the company and can be found by looking it up on your favorite investment research site or by contacting the Investor Relations department for the issuing company or organization.
Step 3
Hit the "Equity" key at the top of the keyboard terminal.
Step 4
Type the command "CACS" and hit "GO" for a list of CUSIPs associated with the ticker symbol provided.