Jun
6

6 Reasons I Love Bloomberg (the Terminal)

Bloomberg Terminal

My name is Mike Davis, and I am in love. No, this is not an online posting where I propose to some woman about how I would like to spend the rest of my life with her, and wobble on one knee while she swoons over how romantic I am. Let’s face it, there are a lot of prerequisites that need to be met before that happens. Not to mention the most important one, having a girlfriend. But I digress.

I have a new love. Well, more like a reliable friend that has never let me down, my friend’s name is the Bloomberg terminal. Instead of making this a rambling post of all the reasons why I love this bad boy, I thought I would make a list. One, to ease readability. Two, to increase the likelihood that someone would click on this article (don’t ask me, it’s proven that <insert number> reasons why <something crazy> formula increases click rate).

So here we go….

6. It makes me sound smart. Whether looking or facts on a company, stalking researching a industry contact, or reading about what the meltdown in Greece means to me. After spending some time with this terminal, I sound smarter.

5. Fancy keyboard. I’m not sure if that image up there does this keyboard justice, but there are something like 2094385350 keys on this keyboard. (I might be exaggerating, but man, I don’t even have to type the word “equity”, I just hit F8. Now don’t get me wrong, I think the Optimus keyboard is pretty amazing, with it’s LED keys and totally programmable keys, but the feel of this keyboard is just so OLD school… CLACK CLACK CLACK, yeah, you hear that sound? That’s ME. That’s me RESEARCHING baby… come over here and let’s have a conversation, I’m going to slow play all this K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E like Jesus at World Series of Poker.

4. Dual screens of death. The only thing that would make me feel more like Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street was if I got on my phone and started some rant about how everyone should short some arbitrary something or other instrument of financial wizardry. I mean, I have charts, news, management bios, common-sized statements all on the screen, AT THE SAME TIME. You want to know what’s going on with <insert company name>, come over here to my dual screens, give me 10 seconds, I will give you a snapshot.

3. Amazing suggestions. Just when I thought there was no other way to slice, dice, and analyze this data, BAM, my trusty friend comes up with a suggestion. Want to chart economic indicators next to company fundamentals? (ask me why that’s important… go ahead, I DARE you to ask me why that is important) Well, here is the abbreviation you can type up in the command bar area to do that. Been spending too much time in the dark pit that is called “independent research”, want to know what’s going on in New York City, type TNYC. BAM. KNOWLEDGE.

2. Orange is my favorite color. You know what is critical when you are spending 34583457 hours behind the computer researching? A font, and a color that reduces eye strain. (coincidentally, it also makes for some very cool looking charts and graphs). Get four windows across the Dual Screens of death (see above) do some comparisons, read the news, get some awesomeness going on the tickers… then leave and go get a soda or something… trust me, try it. It’s like a venus fly trap for curious minds…. Hey Mike, what are you doing? Oh me, I’m just, you know, looking at some betas across different financial instruments to hedge the exposure in my portfolio… you know, as you do on a Sunday afternoon (though you can’t trade on it, because the markets are not open, but who’s getting technical here?).

1. Live help. You heard that right people. LIVE freaking’ HELP!!! On anything you want. Literally. ANYTHING. Press help twice, and it’s like rubbing the genie lamp. BAM. Here is an example conversation.

THEM: Hey, how may I help you?

ME: Oh, you know, I’m trying to hedge the exposure in my portfolio, is there some way I can see the price of beans in china?

THEM: Certainly, type P BEANS CHINA in the command bar, you’re get the price of beans in china.

ME: Cool, thanks, can I export that so that I can run Gaussian-Fibonacci-Madonna-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince distribution on the data set?

THEM: Absolutely, that’s the GFMAFKAP export, you can access that on the little drop down or if you are a fan of keyboard only action, because every second counts when you are doing research, you can just type 96 and hit enter.

Seriously, I just had this conversation If you’re curious about the output, I’ve included it.