The Basics of Bloomberg Terminals

The Basics of Bloomberg Terminals

If you've ever felt overwhelmed with the Bloomberg Terminals, trust me you're not alone. I remember my first time booting up the software, only to be met with 10 different windows, flashing lights, and an ancient user interface.

This guide was designed to help beginners navigate the essential functions of the terminals. Bloomberg terminals are incredibly powerful tools, allowing you access information, news, and data that cannot be found anywhere else or nearly at the same speed. I wrote this guide as a resource for my peers at Virginia Tech. However, anyone with access to a Bloomberg Terminal may benefit from this instruction set.

If you want to learn how to harness this incredibly powerful system, you are in the right place. In this step-by-step guide you will learn how to get set up, navigate the main interface, and execute basic queries to find the information you desire.

Outline

1. Setting up an account/logging into Bloomberg
2. Setting up your environment
3. What are we even looking at?
4. Your first query
5. Getting data from your first company
6. Using graph fundamentals
7. Extracting data into excel
8. Reading analyst research reports

The only supplies needed for this tutorial is a Bloomberg Terminal, which should only set you back around $35,000! If you are a VT student, then head over to Data and Decision Sciences and into the trading lab, there should be 4 Bloomberg Terminals there for student use.

Optional Supplies

1. Mouse
2. Keyboard
3. Headphones

These supplies could enhance your experience but are not necessarily required to learn the ins and outs of the terminals.

If you have a personal Bloomberg Terminal account, you can skip this set up and just go straight to logging in as you've likely already set up an account.

1. If you're a VT student, open up Bloomberg on the black laptops that are located in D&DS(Data and Decision Sciences). Double click on the Bloomberg Icon and wait for a login window to pop up.
2. Once that pops up, click the "Create An Account" button.
3. You should then see a form, as shown in the second image above, to fill in your username, password, email address, and phone number.
4. After you fill the account creation form out, you need to confirm your phone number. Your phone will receive a text with a code, input that code in the corresponding place.
5. Lastly, you need to confirm your email. Shortly after confirming your phone number, you will receive a message in your email. Follow the directed steps in said email.

Now, use that username and password to log in. If the login steps were completed successfully the Bloomberg Terminal interface should start booting up. At this point 3-4 different windows will open on the system .

Great, now you should be logged into Bloomberg and see a variety of different windows!

These windows will include the main dashboard, Bloomberg messaging, a display saver, personal notifications, and other utilities. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with all the windows, and then note which windows are essential to your workflow.

If this is your first time using Bloomberg, I recommend closing all non-essential windows, keep only the main dashboard.

The main dashboard serves as the command center of the Bloomberg Terminal. Use the top search bar to input queries, extract data, and read the news. Follow the steps below to set up the dashboard:

1. Get the display positioned how you'd like on your monitor. Adjust the size and position to your liking, but make sure the windows stand out and be readable.
2. Go to the "Save Display" window and save the current setup you have. Every time you boot up the terminal, the same display will appear. Bloomberg will prompt you to name the display window, type in "Default Config".
3. Go ahead and close the save display window.

Note: You can create as many viewing saves as you want. As you get more advanced, having different windows for different situations might be helpful, however, do not worry too much about that right now.

At this point, only the main dashboard window should be open. Let's understand what we are looking at.

This step is focused on understanding the layout and function of the main dashboard. Expect to use the screen shown above frequently, so take time to get comfortable with the main interface of the Bloomberg Terminal.

Dashboard Overview

The main dashboard provides a snapshot of live market data, a few of the top news headlines, and personalized notifications (you will likely have none).

Key Features

1. Market Data Panels windows show real time quotes. Since this is your first time, the information will likely be the major indices (S&P 500, NASDAQ) and the major Yields (US 10 YR). You can customize these panels to track specific equities, commodities, or industries later as you see fit.
2. News Feed presents the top 5 or so headlines for the market. The headlines are updated in real time, giving you a up to date understanding of important news.
3. Command Center (also known as the Bloomberg Key) sits at the top of the dashboard. This input bar acts as a gateway to using the terminal. Type in queries in the command center to launch functions, get financial data, or even read in depth research.

Now that you have a solid understanding of the main dashboard, let's run your first query!

First off, let's define what a query allows you to do. In the context of the Bloomberg Terminal, a query is a command that you enter in the command center to retrieve a broad or specific set of data. Essentially, this defines how you ask the system to do what you want.

Trying the NEWS Query:

1.On the terminal, go up to the Command Center and left click into the input field. Type in just "N" first and bunch of related queries will pop up, Bloomberg always will auto-suggest related commands. This autocomplete feature appears every time you provide input to the Command Center. Finish typing out "NEWS". Now you can either click “enter” on your keyboard or click on the "<GO>" at the end of the search bar.

Note: Once the above instructions are executed, the terminal will display a list of the latest headlines. You will see the top 3-5 headlines updated in real time, and the rest remain static.

Tip: When you use the scroll wheel on your mouse on Bloomberg, the display will flip through the NEWS pages. You cannot scroll through the news in a traditional manner.

2. Click on an article that interests you. Bloomberg should bring you to said article and you can go ahead and start reading.

Note: There are two types of articles, those that are written by Bloomberg Analysts and AI generated ones. Often, more complicated headlines are written by my analysts, while most simple ones are generated.

3.Once you are satisfied reading the article, you can click the back arrow in the top left to head back to the NEWS main page.

Congratulations! You just made your first query in Bloomberg. But that just scratches the surface of what these terminals are capable of.

Now that you have successfully completed your first query, let’s move onto one of the most important Bloomberg features, being able to retrieve company data.

Whether you are doing a stock pitch for one of the VT investment clubs or just want to learn more about a certain company before making an investment decision, Bloomberg provides unmatched access to data financial statements, key metrics, and earnings reports.

1.Navigate to the Command Center once again.

2.Type the ticker of the company you wish to analyze. In our example, we will use Apple, so the ticker will be AAPL. Click <GO> or press enter.

Notes:

Bloomberg will load Apple’s company page, which includes a set of tabs that organize key market and financial data.

The first tab, GP (General Page) will show an overview of the company, including key metrics, recent stock performance, and news.

The FA (Financial Analysis) has all 3 financial statements, income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements dating from 20-30 years back depending on the company.

Lastly, we have RV (Relative Valuation), which compares a company to competitors.

3.Take some time to explore each tab and familiarize yourself with the layout.

If you want to look at historical stock price data:

1. Type AAPL HP and then click enter. The table you see will display the stock prices over time.
2. Adjust the date range with Bloomberg’s setting icon in the top right corner.

Great job, you just looked at your first company on Bloomberg! Pretty cool right? Let's move onto seeing some cool graphs.

Visualizing financial data plays an important part of any analysis, and Graph Fundamentals provides some of the most powerful graph making capabilities.

1.To access Graph Fundamentals, type the query GF into the command center.

Note: To analyze a specific company, you can add an optional ticker by appending after the command. So, GF AAPL, for example.

2.Adjust the time frames by selecting the toolbar.

Note: Furthermore, you can enter a custom range if you choose such (1 Month, 3 Months, 1 Year, 5 Years). For even further flexibility, enter a customer date range manually.

3.If you'd like some technical indicators, you can add that in the options sections.

Note: Indicators include, but are not limited to, Moving Averages, RSI, Bollinger Bands, and MACD

4.Now the real importance lies in the ability to compare multiple stocks against each other. On the right-hand side, try adding Amazon (AMZN). Below that, you can select what you would like to compare.

Note: Compare revenue, stock price, and whatever else you are interested in.

5.Lastly, you can save your graph by clicking on the "Save Chart" button. You can also export the chart by right clicking and selecting export image. This will save a graph as a PNG or PDF if you need it for later use.

Nice, you just created your first graphs! But want if you want the raw data?

Extracting data into excel is another great function that the terminals allow. To extract data, you will need to install the Bloomberg extension on excel.

1. Open your Microsoft Excel on the same computer as your terminal.
2. Click on the Bloomberg Tab in the Ribbon and launch the Bloomberg Excel Add-In. Let's import some financial data!
3. Stay on the GF page from the last step. Right click on the graph and select "Copy Data to Clipboard"
4. Then go into Excel and paste.

Note: The best practice is to paste by right clicking and “pasting by value” to ensure all data is pasted properly.

Now you have the raw data from the graph we just made. You can complete the steps above with other data too. For example, you can import the three financial statements into excel.

The last main basic function you should be aware of is the Analyst Research reports query. This gives high-quality, in-depth research reports on various topics including companies, overall macroeconomic news, and future predictions a specific industry.

1. To find research reports, we can use the BRC query. Again, head over to the command center and

type in BRC. You can also append a specific company, such as BRC AAPL.

Note: We can filter these reports by industry, publisher/institution, and date. Industry could include Technology, Healthcare, Energy, and more. Furthermore, publishers include either independent analysts or institutions such as Goldman Sachs.

2. Go ahead and select a filter from the top right and choose a Technology Report.

3. Go ahead a take a look over some of the most crucial aspects of the report such as:

1. Company Valuation and Price Targets
2. Buy/Hold/Sell ratings
3. Earnings Forecast
4. Market Commentary

4. Let's download a report for later use, right click on a report and left click “download”. You can also bookmark the document using the button on the top right. The icon will look like a traditional bookmark.

5. To access bookmarks later, type in the BMK query into the command center. This will bring up a list

of all your bookmarks which you can access at any time.

Learning and mastering the Bloomberg Terminals can feel daunting at first, but with this approach outlined above, you can get a solid foundational understanding. In this guide, you learned how to set up your account/environment, push queries, analyze company data, use graph fundamentals, extract data into Excel, and read analyst research reports.

The terminals remain one of the most powerful financial tools to this day, using the system can provide you with a huge advantage in multiple endeavors.

Now that you know the basics, go out there and work with real data for projects and research. The more you practice the better you will get!