An Introduction to Bloomberg

Presented by the Georgetown School of Business Technology Center

Email questions to Jennifer Cheung: cheungj@msb.edu

Bloomberg provides nearly unlimited, up-to-the-minute information in the form of charts, graphs, text, and audiovisual media. The information is consolidated, well organized, reliable, and timely.

The goals of this presentation are to:

Introduce common information retrieval procedures, keys and and commands necessary to efficiently operate Bloomberg

Demonstrate Bloomberg's audio-visual services

Teach how to download information into Excel

Exhibit specifically how Bloomberg presents the information it offers, esp. Equities and Indexes

Preview Bloomberg's more advanced functions

Bloomberg's menus, functions, codes and screens are constantly being updated. This guide will be gradually outdated. Spending some time on Bloomberg will result in familiarity with how it operates and how the information is logically organized.

(all Bloomberg commands are in bold)

STARTING BLOOMBERG:

First: Log in.

Hit the red <Conn Dflt> key.

Enter Name: MARKETGSB

Password: GSB

Use capital letters only. The Name and Password are case-sensitive.

IMPORTANT KEYS:

Bloomberg now works with the mouse.

The system is menu driven; however, clicking once on any item over which the "hand pointer" pops up will retrieve that item.

Menus can be bypassed by typing in a code at the prompt of the cursor in the top left corner and hitting the green <GO> key.

Codes correspond to specific menu screens or functions, such as quote retrieval or audio-visual commands.

The <Tab> key will bring the cursor to all items on the screen which can be customized.

The most useful keys are:

Green <GO> key which brings you forward through functions

Green <MENU> key which brings you back to the previous menu or function

Going directly to desired screens: After becoming familiar with the letter/number symbols for desired screens, enter the codes in the top left at the cursor prompt and hit <GO>.

Directions appear in the top left corner of the screen to prompt the user for the appropriate command.

To page forward or backward through a specific number of pages, enter a number of pages to skip and hit green <PAGE BACK> or <PAGE FWD>.

Basic commands which bring up important menus:

Yellow function keys (The keys are marked with function numbers and words):

F1 <HELP> Brings up all the help information available for the screen being viewed

F2 <GOVT> Government bond calculators, news, yields, and prices

F3 <CORP> Corporate bond calculators, news, yields and prices

F4 <MTGE> Mortgage securities and news

F5 <M-MKT> Money market yields and offerings

F6 <MUNI> Municipal bond calendars and yields

F7 <PFD> Preferred securities

F8 <EQUITY> Equity news, prices, and market tracking information

F9 <CMDTY> Commodity news and contract information

F10 <INDEX> Market and economy tracking statistics

F11 <CRNCY> Currency rates and information

F12 <CLIENT> Portfolio creation and analytics

Mutual Funds can be found under the Equity menu. Data is furnished by Morningstar.

Bloomberg has built in financial calculators. They can be accessed by going to the appropriate yellow function key and choosing the item from the menu.

To retrieve available information on a security, i.e. a stock symbol or an index, type in the symbol and the appropriate yellow function key. Enter: "Stock Symbol" <Equity> or "Index Symbol" <Index>, e.g. PFE <Equity> will pull up the functions available to analyze Pfizer, or SPALUM <Index> will pull up a menu for the S&P Aluminum index, or OPECDALY <Index> will pull up a menu relating to OPEC's daily crude basket, or WOY <Commodity> will pull up a menu of all functions available for the Oats Spot market.

To find a symbol enter the appropriate <yellow function key> TK. This is the ticker find function. It will prompt you to enter a partial name to locate the symbol.

NEWS RETRIEVAL

NEWS STORIES

The news panel at the bottom of the BLP1 screen reports headlines of the latest news. The panel scrolls as new stories come in. It can be kept at the bottom of the page, as a combined news panel, or changed to be a split news panel that shows many more stories at one time. Right click on the mouse and choose either "Split News Panel" or "Combine News Panel". The separate Split News Panel can be viewed by hitting Alt-Tab to switch screens.

N Bloomberg's main news menu

TOP Top news stories

CPNY Corporate news

BBEA Earnings analysis and updates

<Equity> NN Menu of equity news

EDGAR FILINGS SEARCH

EDGS Retrieve the most recent filings or search for filings on a specific company

ECONOMIC RELEASES and INTERNATIONAL DATA

ECO To obtain the latest US economic releases.

WECO To obtain the latest World economic releases.

IMF Furnished by the IMF, this database offers the most comprehensive international economic data. Retrieve a times series of information on one country or compare, on one screen, one data item over any five year period for several countries.

EXCHANGE PROFILES

EMTK Locate the ticker symbols for equity markets by country, as an alternative to searching <Index> TK by index name.

EPR Bloomberg offers information on international exchanges, including which indexes from the country are covered by Bloomberg.

RESEARCH

BR Multex Research, which provides Analyst Recommendation Changes, Daily Research, and Published Research.

ANY TOPIC

TNI Access news on ANY specific topic.

Enter TNI <Go> and tab to an orange "subject," "company," or "person" box, enter desired news topic.

To view a menu of topics and their respective codes: enter "?" in any one of the orange topic boxes, hit <GO>.

Page through the menus, select number of the desired topic and hit <GO>.

Once a list of headlines is retrieved, to search the news for specific words, type 25 <GO> and enter a word in the filter space.

Once you are familiar with the topic code for the type of news you would like to retrieve: Enter TNI "Specific Code" <GO>.

AUDIO-VISUAL SERVICES

Use Bloomberg's audio-visual services on the Master Terminal Screen while working on the other screen. The Master Terminal is BLP0 (hit alt-tab to switch among screens or choose the screen on the Windows toolbar). Type "AV" and select an audio-visual program. Alt-tab to BLP1, and use any Bloomberg functions.

AV Listen to news reports in desired language, analyst meetings, panels, roundtables, interviews, Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg editorial commentary. You mmay also access other AV providers such as NPR. Relevant Bloomberg screens and pictures will automatically and periodically come up on the Master Terminal screen.

Long audio-visual programs will be divided into logical sub-topics and the sub-headings are listed with playing times. In the Master Terminal go to the AV control panel by hitting "1" <GO>. The menu of sub-topics can be scrolled through to listen to select portions of the entire program by using the green <PAGE FWD> key. To skip through the program by one minute intervals hit "SHIFT" forward arrow.

A white arrow to the left of a headline indicates that the item is audio-visual.

Choose a security and retrieve all audio-visual news on a specific equity: "Symbol" <EQUITY> CNAV (i.e. XON <EQUITY> CNAV)

DOWNLOAD into EXCEL, WORD, or POWERPOINT

1 - Log in to Bloomberg. 2 - Go to the Windows Start menu. 3 - Go to the Bloomberg Source for Data item. 4 - Select BBCOMM. 5 - Go to Start. 6 - Go to Bloomberg DDE Server. 7 - Select DDE Server. 8 - Open Microsoft Excel. Bloomberg Icons should appear on the toolbar. 9 - Select the Start Real-Time Updates Bloomberg Icon (red circle). 10 - Select the Table Wizard Bloomberg Icon. 11 - Follow the steps and create a spreadsheet for Bloomberg to automatically update. 12 - Save the spreadsheet to open again and automatically update.

If you would like a time series of data, 1. Perform steps 1 through 7 above. 8. Go back to the Bloomberg Source for Data item. 9. Go to the History Tool. 10. Enter a symbol. 11. Select a data field and input the appropriate time range. 12. Select the Go icon to retrieve the data. 13. Highlight the data that appears in the window and select the Copy icon. 14. The information has been copied in spreadsheet format. Paste into any other application (such as Excel or Word).

Any Bloomberg screen can be copied and pasted as a bitmap file into any other application (such as Word or Powerpoint). 1. Pull up the screen desiring to copy on Bloomberg. 2. Place the mouse over the screen and right click. 3. Choose Save Screen. 4. Open or insert the file in other application. 5. If you would not like the screen saved in the original colors, before saving the screen: Right click the mouse. Choose Options. Choose Save Screen in COLOR, Save Screen BLACK on WHITE, or Save Screen WHITE on BLACK.

RESEARCH INTO EQUITIES, INDEXES, and CURRENCIES

EQUITIES

<Equity> TKI Choose from various menus of sub-industries to narrow down equities in a given industry.

"Stock Symbol" <Equity> Research an individual company.

DES Start with this function to obtain general information and a broad overview into recent trends in sales and earnings.

View comparative financial statement information and the most recent financial ratios.

BQ Retrieve a snapshot of a stock's trading activity.

CN Check the most recent news available on the stock.

EE View future earnings estimates and recent estimate increases/decreases provided by IBES, Zacks, and Nelson's.

ANR, BMRS, ANC Each of these functions will bring up different information pertaining to analyst recommendations

GP View a graph of the stock's performance. Change the date to view longer/shorter term performance. View volume.

GIP View a graph of daily trading activity - useful for making trading decision regarding buy/sell price.

GPC View candle graph to see intra-day activity. Add moving averages and volume to the graph for a full picture.

FA Access Financial Analysis: valuation, ratios, debt-equity, income, balance sheet, and cash flow. Set up custom reports to print.

CH1 Overview of selected items from company financial history over past 10 years.

CH2 View income statement items going back as far as 10 years.

CH3 View balance sheet items going back as far as 10 years.

CH4 Graph two items (balance sheet, income statement, stock price) for a given stock on the same graph to view relationship.

CH6 View cash flow items going back as far as 10 years.

GE, PEBD View enhanced graphs of Price Earnings Ratio compared to Price history.

RV Run a relative value report to compare the individual company to its competitors in terms of financial, technical and price data.

Equity Options:

"Symbol" <Equity> EOPT Executive Options Screen: Use six different models to price equity options.

To access various options functions for a specifc equity: "Symbol" <Equity>. Go to page six.

INDEXES

F10 <Index>

<Index> TK Access an alphabetical list of available indexes

"Index Symbol" <Index> Access the graphs, news, and other information available for a specific index

Dow Jones Industrial Average: INDU <Index>

Standard & Poors 500: SPX <Index>

EMI Access a menu of indexes by country

WEI Obtain list of all world equity indexes

IMOV Find specific equity indexes (i.e. the S&P Aluminum index or S&P Retail Apparel).

MEM Find the weightings of individual items in a particular index

MINE Obtain information on metals, minerals and mining.

WBMS World Metal Statistics

CURRENCY

WCR World Currency Rates

FXC Key Cross Currency Rates. View constantly updating matrix of key world currencies.

To retrieve foreign exchange rates and a graph of historical rates:

"Three Letter Currency Symbol" <Currency> "Three Letter Currency Symbol" <Currency>

HS Retrieve a summary screen of spread information.

CUSTOMIZABLE FUNCTIONS

ESRC Create a search that will select equities by various criteria, i.e. fundamental, technical and descriptive items. (Within the last few months the search criteria have been expanded tremendously.)

Choose 1 to select a Custom Criteria Set

Define search by selecting menu items

Choose 2 to view screening results based on the criteria specified in ESRC

W Create a Worksheet based on the portfolio which can be further customized and is directly accessible for you to monitor. Use the Worksheet to compare data items on each company.

HMS Chart the price performance of four securities/indexes against each other. Normalize the graph to compare.

CNP Create a personal newspaper. Enter your favorite screens into the criteria screen and automatically print each day.

MRA Enter up to four independent variables and one dependent variable to obtain regression analysis.

CORR Enter up to ten items to correlate to ten others. T-Statistic and P-value can be obtained by paging forward.

VOL Option #2: Retrieve the coefficients of correlation for international fixed income and equity markets.