Bloomberg's Best Investment Fund Options: Where To Start?

Bloomberg Terminal is a widely used source of real-time financial information for professionals in the finance industry. It offers a wealth of news and headlines, real-time quotes across numerous markets, tools for fundamental and technical analysis, economic research, and more. The Bloomberg Terminal can be accessed by subscribing to the Bloomberg service, which involves a unique pricing plan for each user, or by visiting a public facility with a Bloomberg terminal such as a university or library.

The Bloomberg Terminal provides a range of investment fund options, including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). When considering which investment fund option is best, it is important to assess your risk tolerance, time horizon, knowledge of investing, financial situation, and the amount you can invest.

For those seeking lower-risk investments, options such as savings accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), or government and municipal bond funds may be more suitable. On the other hand, riskier investments with higher potential returns include stock index funds, dividend stock funds, value stock funds, and small-cap stock funds.

Utilizing the various functions and tools available on the Bloomberg Terminal can aid in exploring and analyzing different investment ideas and options. These tools can help users monitor the performance of factors, dig into historical data, compare valuations, and assess potential future performance.

Ultimately, the best investment fund option on Bloomberg will depend on an individual's financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon.

Bloomberg Terminal's market and news monitor functions

The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial services sector to monitor and analyse real-time financial market data. The terminal provides news, price quotes, and messaging across its proprietary secure network.

Bloomberg Terminals Market and News Monitor Functions:

The Bloomberg Terminal offers a range of market and news monitoring functions, including:

• Real-time quotes and news: The terminal provides real-time quotes across numerous markets, along with fast access to news, data, unique insights, and trading tools.
• Customizable displays: Users can customise their displays to include multiple windows, each showing specific pieces of information such as market data, news tickers, and portfolio monitors.
• Market sector keys: The Bloomberg keyboard has market sector keys (e.g., F2 for government securities, F8 for equity shares) that allow users to navigate by asset class, including government bonds, corporate bonds, municipals, commodities, equities, and currencies.
• News and market monitors: Users can monitor news updates and financial market movements. The top news function brings up the top worldwide news stories of the day, which can be customised to show news by asset class, geographic region, or topic.
• Economic forecasts and releases: The terminal provides access to economic forecasts and data from major economies, including upcoming economic data releases and consensus forecasts from economists.
• Company-specific news: Bloomberg offers company-specific news, with scrolling lists of the most recent news stories about a particular security.
• Analysis tools: Bloomberg provides a suite of charting capabilities, including relative strength indicators, candlestick charts, and comparison charts for multiple securities.
• Messaging: Bloomberg has a robust messaging system that allows users to stay in contact with other users via email or instant messaging.

Bloomberg's analytics for individual securities

Bloomberg Terminal is a powerful tool for financial professionals, offering a wealth of features for analyzing individual securities. Here are some key aspects of Bloomberg's analytics for individual securities:

Data and Research

Bloomberg Terminal provides users with access to extensive data, research, and analytics. This includes real-time data, news, and proprietary research across various industries, markets, companies, and countries. Users can tap into third-party research from over 1,500 sources, enhancing their insights and decision-making capabilities.

Equity Analysis

Bloomberg allows users to analyze publicly traded equity shares in great detail. Users can search for stocks by name, exchange, or country. The platform offers historical pricing data, business descriptions, information on corporate debt, analyst reports, and estimates. It also enables users to compare and contrast equities side by side, providing a comprehensive analysis of fundamental and technical factors.

Fixed-Income Securities

Bloomberg provides real-time data on fixed-income securities, including corporate debt, municipal bonds, and government bonds. Users can view historical day-over-day changes in security values, yield-to-maturities, credit ratings, and cost of capital information. This enables investors to make informed decisions about their fixed-income investments.

Derivatives Capabilities

One of Bloomberg Terminal's standout features is its derivatives capabilities. Users can find real-time values for various derivatives, including exchange-traded options, futures contracts, and active contracts for commodities like WTI. Additionally, Bloomberg allows users to value complex derivatives, such as OTC options, by customizing valuation models like the Black-Scholes model.

FX Market Analysis

With its 24-hour real-time FX market capabilities, Bloomberg is a powerful tool for foreign exchange participants. Users can access live rates for numerous currencies, basis curves for most currency pairs, and rate information for specific currencies. Combined with its news and economic updates, Bloomberg offers a comprehensive solution for FX traders.

Customization and Alerts

Bloomberg Terminal allows users to customize their workspace to make fast, informed decisions. Users can set up portfolio monitors, market alerts, and charting capabilities to suit their specific needs. The platform also offers instant access to company updates and news, ensuring users stay abreast of market-moving developments.

Bloomberg Terminal's analytics for individual securities empower investors and financial professionals with the data, tools, and insights they need to make strategic decisions across various asset classes. Its combination of real-time data, news, research, and customizable features makes it a valuable resource for anyone seeking to enhance their investment strategies.

Bloomberg Terminal's unique keyboard

The Bloomberg Terminal is an indispensable data and information system for financial professionals, connecting more than 350,000 users worldwide with real-time data, news, and analytics. One of the first things people notice when they sit down in front of a Bloomberg Terminal is its unique keyboard. Although similar to a standard desktop keyboard, Bloomberg Terminals substitute the function keys on a standard keyboard (i.e. F4) with market sector keys. The Bloomberg keyboard also incorporates colour-coding to make it more intuitive. The function keys along the top of the keyboard are mostly colour-coded yellow and allow the user to navigate by asset class: government bonds, corporate bonds, municipals, commodities, equities, currencies, and more. For example, if a user wants to examine a stock, they can access it through the "EQ" key. If they want to look at trading the US dollar versus the euro, most functions would be accessed with the "FX" key.

The Bloomberg keyboard also has special function keys for preferred stocks and funds, as well as a key for communicating with other users via email or instant message, and a key that can be used to request assistance. The "help" key can be your best friend when you are new to the system. Hitting it once will bring up information about the screen you are viewing, and hitting it twice will send an instant message to the Bloomberg help desk.

The original Bloomberg keyboard was hand-assembled and required a special cable that ran from the user's desk to an equipment room containing the Bloomberg Controller and dedicated telephone lines connecting to a local network hub. The first redesign of the original keyboard, the Trackball, allowed for easy and quick terminal functionality. In 1992, an enhancement was released that included an integrated speaker and dedicated Telco jacks, headphone and microphone ports. In 1994, the demand for a PC-style keyboard grew from internal requests from engineers, coinciding with the development of the early versions of "Open Bloomberg". The following year, in 1995, Bloomberg released its first wireless keyboard model, using infra-red technology to connect to the PC. This keyboard supported 23 languages and added support for Bloomberg Tradebook with keys specific to traders' needs.

Bloomberg Terminal's cost

The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector to access and analyse real-time financial market data. It also allows users to place trades on its electronic trading platform. The system provides news, price quotes, and messaging across its proprietary secure network.

The Bloomberg Terminal has been in use since 1982 and was developed by employees working for businessman Michael Bloomberg. The terminal is well-known for its black interface, which has become a recognisable trait of the service.

The cost of a Bloomberg Terminal is approximately $25,000 per user per year. The exact pricing and terms of the contract are unique to each user and will be discussed by the sales team. The terminal is leased in two-year cycles, with most setups having between two and six displays.

Due to its high cost, the Bloomberg Terminal is mostly used by institutional investors, portfolio managers, and analysts for major financial services firms.

Bloomberg's Excel integration

To access the Excel main menu on Bloomberg, users can type Excel or DAPI into the system. The Excel Add-In is a powerful tool that delivers Bloomberg data and analytics into an Excel spreadsheet on the user's desktop. It is important to note that users must be logged into the Bloomberg terminal to use the Excel Add-In.

The Spreadsheet Builder feature simplifies the process of importing Bloomberg data into a spreadsheet by automatically generating the necessary functions through a step-by-step process. This can be accessed by selecting Spreadsheet Builder from the Bloomberg Menu or by clicking on the Import Data icon on the Excel toolbar.

Bloomberg also offers worksheet functions that provide intermediate to advanced Excel users with the flexibility to create their own formulas. These functions include BDP (Bloomberg Data Point) for current data, BDH (Bloomberg Data History) for historical end-of-day and intraday data, and BDS (Bloomberg Data Set) for large data sets or bulk data. When using these formulas, users must specify the security and data item they want to retrieve.

In addition to the Excel Add-In, Bloomberg allows users to copy and paste tables from Bloomberg directly into Excel. This can be done by placing the cursor at the corner of the table in Bloomberg, clicking and dragging the desired data, and then pasting it into Excel.

There are various methods to install the Excel Add-In. One method is to go to the Start Menu, select Programs, then Bloomberg, and finally choose Install Excel Add-In. Another method is to select File, then Options, followed by Manage, Excel Add-ins, and finally navigate to the appropriate file location.

Frequently asked questions