DerivativeContractMultiplierUnit (FIX tag 1438)

intFIX 5.0 SP2

DerivativeContractMultiplierUnit (tag 1438) is an int field defined in FIX 5.0 SP2. It appears in 3 message types, always optionally.

At a glance

Tag: 1438
Name: DerivativeContractMultiplierUnit
Datatype: int
Dialects: FIX 5.0 SP2
Messages: 3

What the specification says

Indicates the type of multiplier being applied to the contract. Can be optionally used to further define what unit DerivativeContractMultiplier(1266)is expressed in.

Descriptions are quoted from the FIX Orchestra sources under the Apache 2.0 licence.

A real message using tag 1438

DerivativeSecurityListRequest · FIX 5.0 SP2

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIXT.1.1
9	BodyLength	88
35	MsgType	z	DerivativeSecurityListRequest
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
320	SecurityReqID	EXAMPLE
559	SecurityListRequestType	0	Symbol
1438	DerivativeContractMultiplierUnit	1
10	CheckSum	124

Edit and decode it yourself

Shown with | separators for readability. On the wire FIX uses SOH (0x01), an invisible control byte — and because BodyLength and CheckSum are computed over the actual bytes, the two forms have different checksums. Both are valid and both decode here.

Open in the full decoder →

Generated from the FIX 5.0 SP2 dictionary and verified at build time: it parses and validates with no issues. Open the decoder to try your own message.

Where tag 1438 appears

Requiredness is a property of the message, not of the field: the same tag can be optional in one message and conditionally required in another.

Message	MsgType	Requiredness	Where in the message
DerivativeSecurityList	AA	Optional	inside DerivativeSecurityDefinition › DerivativeInstrument
DerivativeSecurityListRequest	z	Optional	inside the DerivativeInstrument component
DerivativeSecurityListUpdateReport	BR	Optional	inside DerivativeSecurityDefinition › DerivativeInstrument

Wire format

A whole number, optionally signed. Leading zeros are legal on the wire and are preserved in the raw value. @boarteam/fix parses the value as a number and reports parse/invalid-int when it does not lex as one; the raw string is kept either way.

Read tag 1438 in TypeScript

decode.tsts

import { createFixEngine } from "@boarteam/fix";import { dictionary } from "@boarteam/fix-dict-fix50sp2";const fix = createFixEngine(dictionary);const { message, issues } = fix.parse(raw);const field = message.fields[1438];field?.name;   // "DerivativeContractMultiplierUnit"field?.raw;    // the verbatim wire stringfield?.value;  // coerced to a number

Decode this in your own code

The same engine that produced the decoded example above is an Apache-2.0 npm package with zero runtime dependencies. It runs in Node and in the browser, and parse() returns problems as data instead of throwing.

npm i @boarteam/fix @boarteam/fix-dict-fix50sp2

Try the decoder Source on GitHub