Business Tutorial: Bloomberg

Bloomberg is not available remotely. Students can only access Bloomberg at an installed campus location. In addition to the Bloomberg Terminal located in Pardee Library which is open to current BU students, faculty and staff,

The following physical Bloomberg terminals are available to Questrom students: 

• 7 located in HAR427 (Graduate Resource Center) only open to Questrom graduate students.
• 8 located in HAR328 (Open Access Lab) open to all Questrom students.

Please note that the Pardee Bloomberg Terminal is only available to current BU students, staff, and faculty. Any other BU visitors or alums looking for Bloomberg access can visit the Boston Public Library's Kirstein Business Library & Innovation Center.

Bloomberg is a premier financial services industry data integrator providing news and analytics for over 129 countries and 250 exchanges. Offerings include 24-hour historical and 15-minute delayed securities pricing, news, data, and analysis on companies, markets, and economies. Bloomberg market coverage includes: Government, Equity, Corporate, Mortgage, Money Market, Municipal, Preferred Equity, Commodities, Indices, Currency, and Derivatives.

1. Double click the Bloomberg icon on the desktop of the machine to launch Bloomberg.
2. Once Bloomberg is open, click on  <Enter/GO> to bring up the log-in screen.
3. Select the Create New Login option below the Login Name and Password boxes.
   
   

4. Follow the instructions on each screen to fill in your personal information including your BU.edu email address and your cell phone number in order to receive your validation code.

5. Once Bloomberg has sent you a validation code either via SMS text, automated phone call or email enter it in the appropriate field and press Continue.

6. Create your personal Password.

7. Take note of your Bloomberg Username (displayed on login screen below) and click Log In Now to return to the login screen.

Photo credit: Medium

The way to navigate on Bloomberg is to use its menu keys in combination with some command based shortcuts.

Green keys are Action keys.

• Enter/GO – use the GO key as you would a return or an enter key on a normal keyboard.
• F1/Help – use whenever you cannot find a function. Simply type what are you looking for, hit the F1/Help key and view the results. If you still cannot find an answer to your question, hitting F1/Help twice will send an email to the Bloomberg Help Desk.
• Menu – use to navigate from any function back to a menu of related functions.
• Pg Up/Pg Down keys – use to navigate through pages of data; or, when viewing charts, to see data used to create the chart.
• End Back – use to take you back to the previous screen.
• Panel – toggles between the 2 most recently used of the 4 Bloomberg screens which appear when you log in. 
• Print – use to print a single page; to print multiple pages, type the number of pages to print and then press the Print key.

ESC/Cancel – use to cancel the current function.

Log Off – Press once to log on using your name/password. Press once to log off.

Yellow Keys are Market Sector Keys

• F2/Govt – Displays list of bonds that match a ticker symbol, coupon, and/or maturity that you select, e.g. international & US Government bonds (such as T bonds).
• F3/Corp – Corporate debt, corporate bond prices, and yields by company may be found with this function.
• F4/Mtge – the Mortgage menu includes information about pools and generics.
• F5/M-Mkt – Money Markets includes programs, which are records containing specific issue information. Money markets are for borrowing and lending money for three years or less. The securities in a money market can be US government bonds, Treasury Bills and commercial paper from banks and companies.
• F6/Muni – the Municipal markets menu contains info about bonds issued by municipalities in the United States.
• F7/Pfd – Preferred pre-markets covers both public and private securities offered by countries (US & UK mostly). Types include fixed-rate issues, zero coupon issues, floating rate notes, variable rate issues, convertibles, and warranties.
• F8/Equity – Displays actual trades and information about US & global stocks (listed and Over The Counter/OTC). US equity data goes back to 1980.
• F9/Comdty – the Commodity menu has all exchange-listed futures & options contracts of underlying financial & physical products, i.e. gold, wheat, etc.
• F10/Index – all Indicative and/or statistical data & market monitor functions are grouped here under specific categories. Two main sections include: markets & leading economic indicators.
• F11/Curncy – Current markets/monitors for global currencies.

The F1/Help  key can be used at any screen or menu level.
At the cursor prompt at the top of the screen enter your term and hit the F1/Help  key.
Example: Beta F1/Help 

You can also email the Bloomberg Help Desk with any questions you have. Hit the  F1/Help  key twice. This will initiate an email window which will allow you to type in your question and communicate with Bloomberg’s Help desk. You will receive a response within 24 hours from the Bloomberg Help desk.

Bloomberg Professional Service

Type in BPS <GO> to access the resource center for cheat sheets for many of the Bloomberg functions.

Bloomberg University

Type in BU <GO> to view upcoming seminars and events, view the latest enhancements and access the Bloomberg resource center.