---
title: "Instrument"
description: "An instrument is a single tradable or reference security identified by a ticker — a stock, an ETP, or a crypto asset — the smallest thing a strategy can hold."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/getting-started/instrument"
last_updated: "2026-07-24"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/getting-started/instrument.md"
---

# Instrument

An instrument is a single tradable or reference security, identified by a ticker — its short symbol — such as a stock, an ETP (an exchange-traded product like an ETF), or a crypto asset. It is the smallest thing a strategy can hold: strategies screen, rank, buy, and sell instruments. Each instrument carries its own price history, and that history is what a backtest replays.

**Also seen as:** ticker, symbol, security

## Defaults in Fincanva

- Instruments are grouped by [asset type](/docs/getting-started/asset-type); today Fincanva offers three — Stocks, ETPs, and Crypto.
- Each instrument is identified by its ticker symbol and carries its own price history and first available date, which set how far back a backtest that uses it can run.
- Delisted instruments are kept and stay searchable, so a strategy can include securities that no longer trade — this is what keeps a backtest from seeing only today's survivors.

## Worked example

AAPL, SPY, and BTC are three instruments of different types. AAPL is a single company's stock; SPY is an ETP that itself tracks the S&P 500 index; BTC is a crypto asset. A strategy can hold any mix of them, and each brings its own price history — so a [backtest](/docs/getting-started/backtest) that includes BTC can only reach back as far as BTC's own history allows, even if AAPL's stretches decades further.