Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) 20 (3)

ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Teaching Case

Interacting with Bloomberg Terminal

from an Information Technology Perspective
(Student Assignment)

Mark Frydenberg
[email protected]

Jahangir Sultan
[email protected]

William (Bill) VanderClock

[email protected]

Bentley University
Waltham, MA 02452, USA

Abstract
Bloomberg Terminal is one of the most prominent and valuable tools for business and technology
professionals. Having familiarity with Bloomberg is a desirable qualification for business students upon
graduation. This classroom activity introduces Bloomberg Terminal in an introductory information
technology (IT) digital literacy course at a business university. This activity guides students to find and
analyze data related to capital markets that they will need to understand regardless of their chosen
major. Students learn to apply IT concepts and develop their technology skills to complete the activity.

Keywords: Bloomberg Terminal, Digital Literacy, Career Skills, Business Education

1. INTRODUCTION you the opportunity to develop useful skills in the

business world.
Bloomberg is a financial data, news, and media
company. Their Bloomberg Terminal application This activity will also introduce you to the
provides information on financial markets, University's Center for Financial Services (aka
industries, and companies around the world. You "the Trading Room") a comprehensive, online
can access the Bloomberg Terminal application in service for global financial information including
person in the University's Trading Room or using stock performance, financial statements,
your own computer remotely. The Bloomberg emerging and global markets, as well as
Terminal application uses a proprietary database corporate information. You can access Bloomberg
which resides on Bloomberg's servers. Having Terminal from the Trading Room or remotely, and
familiarity with Bloomberg Terminal is a desirable make use of its tools for searching, visualizing,
qualification for business students upon graphing, analyzing, exploring, and interpreting
graduation. Introducing you to Bloomberg financial data. The Trading Room is a state-of-
Terminal in your introductory information the-art facility where students can have first-
technology course will allow you to apply your hand exposure to financial concepts such as
technology skills to use the application and give

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ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

trading, portfolio construction, corporate finance, Bloomberg Terminal and provides a slide deck
and risk management. you can use to submit screenshots showing your
work.
You may complete the assignment in the
University's Trading Room, or online depending 2. THE BLOOMBERG TERMINAL ACTIVITY
on your situation.
You will use Bloomberg Terminal to research a
Information Technology Skills company of interest, by completing these tasks:
While business students usually get their first
exposure to Bloomberg Terminal in a business or • Find ticker symbol for your company.
finance course, developing these skills now will • Use Bloomberg Terminal to find
give you additional skills that may lead to summer information about your company.
employment and internships at local firms by the • Download the balance sheet and income
end of your first year of college. Some students, statement for your company for the most
after completing the training, may choose to recent 3 years.
pursue Bloomberg Market Concept (BMC) • Use the Bloomberg function GP to plot
Certification. stock price using 3 years of daily data.
• Use the Bloomberg function CN to find
By completing this Bloomberg Terminal activity as recent news about the Company.
part of your information systems / technology • Using the Excel add-in, download daily
literacy course, you will identify how the stock prices for 3 years for Apple and your
Bloomberg Terminal application implements assigned company
several important information technology • Download 3 years of currency values for
concepts and develop your own technology skills. the Euro, Yen, and Canadian dollar
In addition to learning basic features of
Bloomberg Terminal, you also will: Learn about Bloomberg Terminal
To prepare for the Bloomberg Terminal activity,
• Interact with financial software and online read several articles about Bloomberg Terminal.
databases, Do independent research or look at those
• Describe the role of the client and server provided in Appendix 1 Table 1.
when connecting to Bloomberg Terminal
as you use an application with a client- Write responses to the discussion questions on
server architecture, the online discussion board, or in another format
• Use a web or client application to access as specified by your instructor:
software over a network,
• Define Application Programming • How might companies make use of
Interface (API) and describe how an API Bloomberg Terminal services?
allows third-party applications such as • What factors contributed to Bloomberg's
Microsoft Excel to access Bloomberg data success?
• Use an application other than a search • Which features of Bloomberg Terminal
engine to do basic research on a that you read about most interest you,
company, and why?
• Move files and data from multiple sources • Consider the technology required to
across multiple devices and platforms, provide the Bloomberg Terminal
• import, analyze, and chart data using application to users around the world.
Excel, Describe the role of the client and server,
• Use application software with a text- the flow of information that takes place,
based command line interface, and the different devices / platforms on
• Distinguish between open-source and which the application is available.
proprietary software.

Section 2 describes the Bloomberg Terminal Accessing Bloomberg Terminal

activity. Section 3 summarizes this lesson's To use Bloomberg Terminal, you will need to
learning goals. create an account for Bloomberg for Education at
https://portal.bloombergforeducation.com/sign_
Appendix 1 contains suggested readings to help up. Your school administrator will need to
you become familiar with Bloomberg Terminal approve your account.
and lists some of its basic functions; Appendix 2
shows the tasks you will accomplish using

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Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) 20 (3)
ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Bloomberg Anywhere is a web app that lets you specific tasks. Appendix I Table 2 lists several
access the Bloomberg Terminal application in a commonly used functions.
browser on any device. If accessing Bloomberg
Terminal remotely, you need to set up the Citrix You will use these functions in the sample
Workspace App client. Follow the instructions at activity: CN (company news), DES (company
https://bba.bloomberg.net/Install/Client to description), FA (company fundamentals), CF
install the Citrix Receiver, client software to (company filings, and GP (general plot). In
connect to the Bloomberg server. Start addition to these functions, please feel free to
Bloomberg Anywhere by opening a browser and explore other commands on your own to see what
visiting https://bba.bloomberg.net. they do. To complete the activity, issue the
appropriate commands to solve each task.
If working in the Trading Room in person, you can
use the computers there, which are already Computers equipped to run Bloomberg Terminal
equipped to run Bloomberg Terminal. have keyboards whose function keys have been
pre-programmed to type many of these common
Overview abbreviations. Becoming familiar with the
You will work in teams of two/ to complete the function keys allows advanced users to improve
activity. Working in person, two students sit at their efficiency when using Bloomberg Terminal.
the same workstation to complete the activity in
person. Working online, the student who signs in In this activity, you will use Bloomberg Terminal
to Bloomberg Terminal shares their screen with to accomplish these tasks:
their partner.
• Find the ticker symbol for your team's
The student viewing the Bloomberg Terminal company (Figure 1).
screen reads the task aloud to their partner; • Investigate the different types of data
discuss your solution, and your partner enters the available for that company (Figure 2).
commands in Bloomberg Terminal to carry them • Download the balance sheet and income
out. Then trade roles after a few steps, so each of statement for that company for the most
you can be both a reader and a follower of recent 3 years (Figure 3).
instructions. • Use the general plot function GP to plot
stock price using 3 years of daily data
You will download a shared Google presentation (Figure 4).
containing each step of the tutorial and outlining • Use the company news function CN to
the questions to answer. find recent news about the company.
(Figure 5).
Take screenshots of your solutions to each step,
and add callouts or descriptions pointing out The figures below show screens from Bloomberg
meaningful information that you are able to Terminal as you complete each task. Search for
discern from each screen. videos online for additional information or
guidance.
Appendix 2 contains a Google Slides deck which
your team can copy to present your results. Add
screenshots to each slide, and include callouts to
show how you interpret the Bloomberg Terminal
screens. You can download this presentation from
https://bit.ly/EDSIGCon2021-Bloomberg.

You can work together on the project, but each

student should reflect their own learning and then
answer the open-ended questions on the last slide
individually. Also consider the technology skills
you used when completing is activity.

Interacting with Bloomberg Terminal

After launching Bloomberg Terminal either in-
person or remotely, you can type phrases such as Figure 1. Find the ticker symbol for your
"US 100 Year Yield" or type the names of pre- team's company.
defined functions (given by three or four-letter
abbreviations) as commands to accomplish

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Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) 20 (3)
ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Figure 2. Investigate the different types of Figure 5. Use the company news function
data that Bloomberg has on that company. CN to find recent news about the company.

Using the Bloomberg Office Tools Add-in for

Excel
In the next part of the activity, you will install the
Bloomberg Spreadsheet Builder and Function
Builder add-ins for Microsoft Excel. These tools
extract information from Bloomberg Terminal and
create search queries for Bloomberg Terminal to
import data into Excel.

To download the add-in installer, navigate to

https://tinyurl.com/Download-Excel-Add-in and
locate the download link for Bloomberg Office
Tools in the Office Tools section, as shown in
Figure 6. Click the Download arrow link to
Figure 3. Download the balance sheet and download the file.
income statement for that company for the
most recent 3 years.

Figure 6. Locating the Bloomberg Office

Tools Add-in for Excel.

It will be named something like

bxla31_11_56.exe (depending on the version
available when downloaded) and appear with a
Bloomberg icon in your Downloads folder.
Double-click the icon to install the add-in, then
start excel to see it. When installed in Excel, these
appear as three buttons in the Create group of
the Bloomberg tab in Microsoft Excel. See Figure
7.

Figure 4. Use the general plot function GP

to plot stock price using 3 years of daily
data.

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Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) 20 (3)
ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Figure 7. Bloomberg add-ins for Excel.

The Spreadsheet Builder is a spreadsheet wizard

that allows you to extract information from the
terminal and display it in Excel. The Function
Builder allows you to create a search query for the
terminal and display the data on Excel.

Using this Excel add-in, you can download daily

or historical stock or currency prices for a given
Figure 9. Financial data from Bloomberg
date interval into Excel. Excel will request the
imported into Excel after using the
data from a Bloomberg server and import it
Bloomberg Terminal.
automatically into Excel. By clicking the
Spreadsheet Builder button in Excel, you can
Using these add-ins, you can download stock data
specify the data to import. The Spreadsheet
and currency data into Microsoft Excel and then
Builder will ask you to specify a task (such as
apply your knowledge of Excel to create line
Analyze Historical Data), then enter the ticker
charts plotting this data.
symbol or currency of interest. Choose the fields
of interest (such as Last Price) and specify a date
3. SUMMARY
range. The Spreadsheet Builder will show the row
and column headings for your worksheet (see
Bloomberg Terminal offers tools to explore the
Figure 8). This example shows what the
technology companies and their developments in
spreadsheet will look like after selecting the last
business through wide-ranging technology
price one stock and two international currencies.
research and news coverage as well as data
analysis tools. To understand the basic
architecture and make use of this tool, you need
to understand several basic technology concepts.
Completing this project allows you to experience
them in a hands-on setting. Your study of the
Bloomberg Company also taught you about the
technology that makes the Bloomberg Terminal
application possible, enabling businesses to use
information technology to provide consistent
information to all of their employees.

Figure 8. Importing Bloomberg stock data

into Microsoft Excel using the Bloomberg
Spreadsheet Builder.

After clicking the Finish button, Figure 9 shows

the data been imported into Excel.

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ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Appendix 1.
Table 1. Readings

About Tech at Bloomberg. (2021). Tech at Bloomberg. https://www.techatbloomberg.com/about/

Bloomberg for Education, Getting Started Guide for Students. (2014).

https://guides.library.uwa.edu.au/ld.php?content_id=14674823

Bloomberg Professional Services, The Terminal. (2021).

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/solution/bloomberg-terminal

Technology. (2021). Bloomberg Professional Services.

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/expertise/technology/

The Terminal on Campus. (2021). Bloomberg Professional Services.

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/expertise/the-terminal-on-campus/

Investopedia, Beginner's Guide to the Bloomberg Terminal. (Feb. 10, 2021).

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionaleducation/11/bloomberg-terminal.asp

McCracken, H. (2015, October 6). How the Bloomberg Terminal Made History–And Stays Ever
Relevant. https://www.fastcompany.com/3051883/the-bloomberg-terminal

Woodie, A. (2017, September 18). The Data Science Inside the Bloomberg Terminal. Datanami.
https://www.datanami.com/2017/09/18/data-science-inside-bloomberg-terminal/

Table 2. Common Bloomberg Terminal Commands

(Italicized commands are used in this lab activity.)

News Equity Analysis

CN – Company News DES – Company Description
BI – Bloomberg Intelligence FA – Company Fundamentals
IPO – Equity Offerings EE – Earnings Estimates
ANR – Analyst Recommendations
FX – Foreign Exchange CRPR – Credit Ratings
FXFC – FX Forecasts DRSK – Default Risk
CF – Company Filings
Economics CACS – Corporate Action Calendar
ECFC – Economic Forecasts GP – Historical Graphs/Table
FOMC – FOMC Activities CAST – Capital Structure
WECO – Economic Calendars EV – Enterprise Value
TECH – Technical Study Browser
Screens WACC – Weighted Average Cost of Capital
WEI – World Equity Index SPLC - Supply Chain Analysis
WB – World Bond Markets
EMEQ – Emerging Market Equity Indices Comparative & Historical Analysis
EQS – Equity Screening RV – Competitor Relative Value
WM – World Equity Markets BETA – Historical Beta
MEMB – Member Weightings
Excel
People XLTP – Excel Template Library
PEOP – People Search
Rich – Bloomberg Billionaires

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ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Appendix 2.

Copy this template from Google Slides and share it with your group members. (Slides 2-6 describe
how to copy and share a Google Slides presentation.) Discuss each step with your partner. Take
screenshots as you complete each step, and add call-outs to describe what you interpreted from the
Bloomberg screens. You can access this sample template from https://bit.ly/EDSIGCon2021-
Bloomberg . Provide the link to your group's Google Slides presentation to submit it.

Slide 1. Slide 2.

Slide 3. Slide 4.

Slide 5. Slide 6.

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Slide 7. Slide 8.

Slide 9. Slide 10.

Slide 11. Slide 12.

Slide 13. Slide 14.

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ISSN: 1545-679X June 2022

Slide 15.

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