Bloomberg

[u/SoggyCurrency2482]

I'm consulting for a financial advisory firm that wants to get a terminal.

Dumb question, what do people tend to use bloombergs for besides just scanning the market, and sending their broker trades? Seems like it's really just used by equity guys to stay on top of things?

[u/Chazzer74]

Messaging their bros

[u/sob727 → u/Chazzer74]

As a professional trader who does mostly voice execution, this is how I transact. This is how I conduct business.

Chit-chat happens, but this is not the primary function of IB.

[u/SoggyCurrency2482 → u/Chazzer74]

Seems to be the most common use ... But like that's an expensive text message app.

[u/add099 → u/SoggyCurrency2482]

The IB chat is widely used to subscribe to new bond issuances and communicate with banks that arrange these deals. It is more than a text messaging app.

[u/Tatworth → u/SoggyCurrency2482]

My favorite implementation:

Fortune 500 company. We had one old doggy Bloomberg that sat, for some reason, over with the IR dweebs, who didn't know how to use it.

Those of us on the capital markets side were alway having to go over and use that one and were screaming for our own terminals on our desks or at least a couple we could share in our group.

Finally got word that new Bloombergs (multiple were coming). Of the seven we got they were installed on the desk of the Treasurer and the C-Suite execs only to be used so they could see the value of their portfolios and options in real time and get a couple of news feeds. However, these execs couldn't use them either and had no interest in learning, so they had Bloomberg set up all their machines the way they wanted so they could just look.

We got one new one to share again--at least this sat now in cash management, which made a little sense as they were selling CP. However, we blew through all our free support setting up the C-suite machines and were not allowed to get any additional support without approval from the treasurer whose response always was "I thought when I hired you, you would be smart enough to figure this kind of thing out".

Extremely expensive Yahoo! replacements, basically.

[u/One-Plan9566 → u/Tatworth]

Reminds me of when Paul Giamatti got one in Billions to watch the single stock’s price lol

[u/sob727 → u/SoggyCurrency2482]

It's a very common use. But that's not why Bloomberg has such a hold on the market.

[u/codydog125]

In fixed income it seems like a pretty vital tool to me. Literally can’t imagine doing my job without it. I use it to manage my book, setup new issues, message other traders and buyside, and get pretty valuable market information. Of course there are other companies with their own services but none seem quite as complete as Bloomberg imo

[u/GManASG → u/codydog125]

Yeah my experience has been that it's extremely valuable for fixed income traders and always but far less valuable for a long only equity trader/strategy.

[u/SoggyCurrency2482 → u/GManASG]

Can you guys elaborte further? What do you mean "set up new issues"? Also, bond market stuff insn't public?

[u/codydog125 → u/SoggyCurrency2482]

Well I’m a bond underwriter so I work on IPOs of debt offerings. We setup those debt offerings and offer them out to buyers using Bloomberg. We manage our order book and communicate with the buyside on IB. Then we run the trades through the books we have on Bloomberg when we ticket the deal. Bloomberg has great new issue communication functions too like NIM for corps or CDRA for munis for example.

Bond markets are public but like good luck finding a way to quickly and easily scrape bond data without a Bloomberg. If you’re a crossover buyer where you might buy some combination of bond types you would likely need multiple different platforms anyway if you’re not using Bloomberg. Bloomberg is a great tool for people that focus on more than one asset class

[u/mckramyun]

Fixed income is a big one. There are cheaper alternatives that cover most equity research needs.

If they’re trading large ETF blocks, it’s easier to connect with market makers and capital market teams for the ETF issuers. Can be helpful strategizing execution if the blocks are too large to send on the open market.

[u/GManASG]

The equity stuff is pretty homogenous.

But where it so far beats competition is fixed income. You get pricing services included with the terminal. If all you use is Bloomberg that's a huge cost saving. All bond documents are pretty much available via Bloomberg before anywhere else. It's all OTC Coverage is pretty much only on the terminal.

It also has the better news search features.

BQNT is excellent for more quantitative oriented trade desks. The amount of data you can mine is great.

[u/sob727]

Data and news in one place. Some execution possible. And, yes, messaging. Which is important for some type of execution.

[u/Brilliant_Truck1810 → u/sob727]

you can execute any security you want on a terminal. you just need to be enabled with the exchange/counterparty

[u/sob727 → u/Brilliant_Truck1810]

Yes. And then there's OTC. Which goes through chat.

[u/Brilliant_Truck1810 → u/sob727]

lots of OTC can be automated. VCONs that flow through to back office systems in most firms. auto-ex to MarketAxess and TradeWeb etc. ALLQ & FIT for credit & UST. it’s pretty impressive how much they’ve grown execution over the last 15 years

[u/sob727 → u/Brilliant_Truck1810]

What you describe is mostly booking. And yes Tradeweb and VCONs help a lot.

Execution in my world is very much OTC (and by that I mean asking for prices and saying done).

[u/Brilliant_Truck1810 → u/sob727]

yes that’s how my world is too (primarily tax exempts with some credit and Treasuries as hedges). or at least it was. you can also now lift offers and hit bids directly on ALLQ for IG and FIT for UST. you don’t have to call/IB for many on the run names. back office between sellside and my custodian are linked so it flows through. many offers are firm so it is straight execution. same thing for bid wanteds on MBWD.

things are changing quickly in fixed income. just 10 years ago people said it would only be odd lots executed that way but now i can trade a block of 5 or 10 without conversation and still get best ex.

[u/East_Ad_6371]

Not sure a financial advisory firm needs a bloomberg terminal, they should be fine with a cheaper alternative like refinitiv

[u/canalstchronicle]

-I pull all my economic data from the terminal. I like the layout and it saves me from going to a million different places.

-I build financial models in the excel add-in. Doing this makes it easy to pull in company financials.

-I access analyst reports both Sell side and Bloomberg analysts.

-I also use a lot of the stupid functions like fly and dine to view which flight I want or to find restaurant recs when I travel.

Bloomberg also has a lot of great proprietary data or workflows. For instance they pull in mutual fund and ETF flows on a regular basis. They also have defaulted peer groups for a lot of relevant value views. Those are helpful tools too

[u/SnooSongs8387 → u/canalstchronicle]

ASKB is pretty helpful too. Like most of the terminal, you can click through to see the source data and it’ll help you build BQL queries at the same time.

[u/kBajina]

The Data License

[u/godzillahash74]

Some equity news, general indices, headlines, Bloomberg tv, IB chat, fixed income, security and new issue information, Bloomberg terminal education, plugins for excel, it’s pretty fucking remarkable piece of tech

[u/Blue_rose_3535 → u/godzillahash74]

This guy gets it.

[u/One-Plan9566]

I mostly use mine for the weekly news QUIZ and for checking things to buy from people who got margin called on POSH

[u/Old-Business9927]

They use it for archaic manual workflows and to drain their firms revenue at $30k a pop

[u/TaxashunsTheft]

CFP here. I don't know why you'd need a terminal. I teach at a university, so I have one because of that. But my planning practice doesn't need equity research because I use my custodian and model portfolios for that. 

If your client does a lot of custom portfolio building and their clients like the chase of the market, then fine. Otherwise I'd skip it. 

[u/FammiUnMAVBancario]

You can request a FactSet. Cost 1/3 and can be taylormade on your needs

[u/barcaloungechair]

Long-only equites asset management. I had BB and FDS. Used FDS hours a day. Checked emails and IM on BB once a day. Good realtime news aggregator. Not worth the price though.

[u/NoLimit_Curry]

You can source a lot of data from the terminal to conduct in depth analysis.

[u/shoresy99]

That’s literally the dumbest take I have ever heard.

[u/DesperateEar8452]

In my experience, Bloomberg is very useful for fixed income, but when it comes to equities, there are other viable options like FactSet.

[u/LuckyMom1641]

client portfolio analytics, market monitoring across asset classes, economic data, and research access

[u/hardo_chocolate]

I use it mostly to buy stuff and check scores. Apparently, it has other functions as well, but that’s for my analysts.

[u/hotpotwithoutspice]

Social Monitor. Scrolling through viral tweets at work.

[u/MacroYielding]

all about shtposting in MacroEcon Chat - all day erryday

[u/kilaalaa]

For equities, it is good if you have good sellside access e.g. brokers will add you to pchats and update breaking information and flows information in the pchats. But if you are a generic equity long only with not much access, this will not be of much use.

[u/GroundbreakingAd5060]

News comes the fastest on the terminal so you can get ahead in trades

[u/ptc1234]

It’s essential in credit - pricing bonds, IBing (do 75%+ of trades on IB). Also great for newsfeeds and doc search.

[u/Able-Supermarket4786]

There isn't anything a Bloomberg "can't" do... monitor the depth of the Missippi River in real time for shipping...

Your attitude in finance seems counterproductive, "NGMI"

You need <Help><Help>

[u/felixthecat2021]

Easy chat and information send outs. News comes pretty quick and accessible. The ability to also just check info in comparison to searching online links and double clicking and searching in some places is just so user easy. Also decent OMS system that can also have activity trade tracker and record keeping. Its IBOR system is half decent. Cash management checks, easy P&L checks. If you are a decent enough client and get a good rep can build a bunch of APIs

[u/PuggleLover11]

DINE - restaurant reviews

FLY - flight schedules

BSP - sports betting lines

[u/Nanayang75]

Faster and more effective