4 ms·

Pretty light on actual details about the terminal. Anyone recommend something more in depth?

truebosko 7y ago
The linked Fast Company article has additional tidbits, highlighting the amount of developers, for example. https://www.fastcompany.com/3051883/the-bloomberg-terminal https://www.fastcompany.com/3051883/the-bloomberg-terminal
- chaas30 7y ago
  That story is a couple of years old at this point - the company now has more than 6,000 software engineers.
Crosseye_Jack 7y ago
A fair bit can be pieced together from its own website. For example these days the terminal is just a software based product which comes with a keyboard for each license. The PC is up to you to provide. You can even connect to Bloomberg using the internet but you can still use a dedicated leased line connection.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
buzzkillington 7y ago
Think Emacs for traders. Special keys, odd modes, everything and the kitchen sink, you never leave it once you start it. There tutorials on youtube, but without having one to learn on it's exactly like reading about emacs.
- bradj 7y ago
  And Eikon is the Visual Studio-like competitor.
- swyx 7y ago
  and the defacto Slack for Wall Street decades before Slack existed. sticky as hell.
Jorge1o1 7y ago
Here's a pretty good tutorial [1] (albeit a bit old) on how to price credit default swaps using a typical Bloomberg function. This kind of esoteric fixed income calculator is what makes Bloomberg so dominant. Otherwise, you'd have to write all of this crap in Excel just to price a relatively simple product like a swap. Best way to see what the terminal looks like to look up help and documentation for it. Google things like "Bloomberg SWPM tutorial" [1] https://data.bloomberglp.com/bat/sites/3/2016/10/WhitePaper_Wen.pdf https://data.bloomberglp.com/bat/sites/3/2016/10/WhitePaper_...
hnuser77 7y ago
There are some resources posted at business schools, where Bloomberg Terminal usage is frequently part of coursework [1, 2, 3]. Also the "Bloomberg Markets" magazine (frequently sold in major airports) covers new terminal features and shows how to use the terminal to analyze trending financial topics. [1] http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/c.php?g=114612&p=746563 http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/c.php?g=114612&p=746563 [2] https://business.sdsu.edu/_resources/files/wffmlab/guides/launchpad.pdf https://business.sdsu.edu/_resources/files/wffmlab/guides/la... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anOUEiraEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anOUEiraEtg
TuringNYC 7y ago
I recommend going to your local business public library, they usually have a terminal. Or your local university MBA library. Just play around with it. It is a beautiful and very different machine/software. If you really want to use it, I enjoyed the book Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance which uses the Bloomberg Terminal quite a bit for interactive learning.
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  > business public library Is this a real thing?
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    Not sure about your city, but for example, while I was in college, I accessed the Bloomberg terminal from: https://www.nypl.org/locations/sibl https://www.nypl.org/locations/sibl while off-campus and while on-campus, from: https://johnson.library.cornell.edu/database/bloomberg/ https://johnson.library.cornell.edu/database/bloomberg/
  - swyx 7y ago
    absolutely. its a wonderful thing for people getting in the biz/studying for CFA.
  - vl 7y ago
    Similarly, law libraries usually have access to LexisNexis or Westlaw. It’s as useless for uninitiated as access to Bloomberg Terminal - you need to be trained to do anything useful with them.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      If you can use Google, you can use LexisNexis or Westlaw (and they both, IIRC, have excellent online help.)
swyx 7y ago
was a trader for years before becoming a developer. AMA.
- kilroy123 7y ago
  Why did you stop and go into developement?
  - swyx 7y ago
    burned out, it was super high stress. multiple nights sleeping at my desk. waking up with cold sweats having nightmares about my positions. say a "good" trader gets 52% of their trades correct. that means you're wrong 48% of the time, even on the stuff you're high conviction, done a genuine amount of work on. (tbf not all shops do this, i was just in a large multimanager hedge fund that did work like that. ofc if you're at a quant shop this does not at all apply). as a junior-to-mid level person in finance, most of us are doing some form of coding anyway. i was forced to progress from vba to python to haskell based on the shops i was at. i realized that i was both good at this, enjoyed it, and didnt enjoy the trading part. so i decided to switch into dev despite having no qualifications for it. doing a js bootcamp helped fill in the holes. i'd say finance careers have a much higher ceiling for comp, my boss was pulling in 2m/yr at age 33ish, but he was both lucky and exceptional. i wasn't gonna be him. at my career trajectory (the vast majority of us in finance) i'd probably be more like 200-500k/yr. just kinda not worth it if i could go to tech and make somewhat less but with far better quality of life.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  Do these lines and tangents drawn on the price graphs are actually useful?
  - swyx 7y ago
    only very occasionally, specifically because other people use them as support and resistance levels. that sht is real. but otherwise.. yeah most of the time technical analysis is extreme backfit tea leaf reading mixed up with poor understanding of value vs momentum factors.
donarb 7y ago
In the past few years, Bloomberg has been sponsoring a booth at PyCon US (they're always hiring). They have a 3 screen terminal setup there where you can see it in action and ask questions about how it works. They will be there again at PyCon in April in Pittsburgh.

The linked Fast Company article has additional tidbits, highlighting the amount of developers, for example. https://www.fastcompany.com/3051883/the-bloomberg-terminal https://www.fastcompany.com/3051883/the-bloomberg-terminal

chaas30 7y ago
That story is a couple of years old at this point - the company now has more than 6,000 software engineers.

Crosseye_Jack 7y ago

A fair bit can be pieced together from its own website. For example these days the terminal is just a software based product which comes with a keyboard for each license. The PC is up to you to provide. You can even connect to Bloomberg using the internet but you can still use a dedicated leased line connection.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

buzzkillington 7y ago

Think Emacs for traders. Special keys, odd modes, everything and the kitchen sink, you never leave it once you start it. There tutorials on youtube, but without having one to learn on it's exactly like reading about emacs.

bradj 7y ago
And Eikon is the Visual Studio-like competitor.
swyx 7y ago
and the defacto Slack for Wall Street decades before Slack existed. sticky as hell.

Jorge1o1 7y ago

Here's a pretty good tutorial [1] (albeit a bit old) on how to price credit default swaps using a typical Bloomberg function. This kind of esoteric fixed income calculator is what makes Bloomberg so dominant. Otherwise, you'd have to write all of this crap in Excel just to price a relatively simple product like a swap. Best way to see what the terminal looks like to look up help and documentation for it. Google things like "Bloomberg SWPM tutorial" [1] https://data.bloomberglp.com/bat/sites/3/2016/10/WhitePaper_Wen.pdf https://data.bloomberglp.com/bat/sites/3/2016/10/WhitePaper_...

hnuser77 7y ago

There are some resources posted at business schools, where Bloomberg Terminal usage is frequently part of coursework [1, 2, 3]. Also the "Bloomberg Markets" magazine (frequently sold in major airports) covers new terminal features and shows how to use the terminal to analyze trending financial topics. [1] http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/c.php?g=114612&p=746563 http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu/c.php?g=114612&p=746563 [2] https://business.sdsu.edu/_resources/files/wffmlab/guides/launchpad.pdf https://business.sdsu.edu/_resources/files/wffmlab/guides/la... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anOUEiraEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anOUEiraEtg

TuringNYC 7y ago

I recommend going to your local business public library, they usually have a terminal. Or your local university MBA library. Just play around with it. It is a beautiful and very different machine/software. If you really want to use it, I enjoyed the book Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance which uses the Bloomberg Terminal quite a bit for interactive learning.

barbecue_sauce 7y ago
> business public library Is this a real thing?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Not sure about your city, but for example, while I was in college, I accessed the Bloomberg terminal from: https://www.nypl.org/locations/sibl https://www.nypl.org/locations/sibl while off-campus and while on-campus, from: https://johnson.library.cornell.edu/database/bloomberg/ https://johnson.library.cornell.edu/database/bloomberg/
- swyx 7y ago
  absolutely. its a wonderful thing for people getting in the biz/studying for CFA.
- vl 7y ago
  Similarly, law libraries usually have access to LexisNexis or Westlaw. It’s as useless for uninitiated as access to Bloomberg Terminal - you need to be trained to do anything useful with them.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    If you can use Google, you can use LexisNexis or Westlaw (and they both, IIRC, have excellent online help.)

swyx 7y ago

was a trader for years before becoming a developer. AMA.

kilroy123 7y ago
Why did you stop and go into developement?
- swyx 7y ago
  burned out, it was super high stress. multiple nights sleeping at my desk. waking up with cold sweats having nightmares about my positions. say a "good" trader gets 52% of their trades correct. that means you're wrong 48% of the time, even on the stuff you're high conviction, done a genuine amount of work on. (tbf not all shops do this, i was just in a large multimanager hedge fund that did work like that. ofc if you're at a quant shop this does not at all apply). as a junior-to-mid level person in finance, most of us are doing some form of coding anyway. i was forced to progress from vba to python to haskell based on the shops i was at. i realized that i was both good at this, enjoyed it, and didnt enjoy the trading part. so i decided to switch into dev despite having no qualifications for it. doing a js bootcamp helped fill in the holes. i'd say finance careers have a much higher ceiling for comp, my boss was pulling in 2m/yr at age 33ish, but he was both lucky and exceptional. i wasn't gonna be him. at my career trajectory (the vast majority of us in finance) i'd probably be more like 200-500k/yr. just kinda not worth it if i could go to tech and make somewhat less but with far better quality of life.
mrtksn 7y ago
Do these lines and tangents drawn on the price graphs are actually useful?
- swyx 7y ago
  only very occasionally, specifically because other people use them as support and resistance levels. that sht is real. but otherwise.. yeah most of the time technical analysis is extreme backfit tea leaf reading mixed up with poor understanding of value vs momentum factors.

donarb 7y ago

In the past few years, Bloomberg has been sponsoring a booth at PyCon US (they're always hiring). They have a 3 screen terminal setup there where you can see it in action and ask questions about how it works. They will be there again at PyCon in April in Pittsburgh.