Is there a dataset to provide merger and acquisitions associated with a ticker and is updated periodically
Is there a dataset to provide merger and acquisitions associated with a ticker and is updated periodically
Yes. There's a premium dataset called 'Mergers and Acquisitions' provided by Eventvestor (https://www.quantopian.com/data/eventvestor/mergers_and_acquisitions ). Free data is available for both research and backtesting but only up to a year ago. Recent data is available to use in paper trading and entering contest algos but it will cost you $85/month.
There's a good post on using Mergers and Acquisition data here https://www.quantopian.com/posts/announcing-mergers-and-acquisitions-available-through-pipeline .
Note that the built-in 'QTradableStocksUS ' universe excludes stocks which are active M&A targets. Equities with IsAnnouncedAcquisitionTarget() are screened out automatically.
Hope that helps.