This guide was created by Cornell University Management Library and modified for UNM.
Bloomberg has data on more than 5 million bonds, equities, commodities, currencies, and funds. It covers most every publicly traded company in the world, and has profiles on more than a million people.
Navigation in Bloomberg is via a decentralized, command driven system. Securities are organized by market silos and can be access via drilling down a series of menus or by entering a command. Commands to retrieve information are represented by codes.
Being a decentralized database, there are three things to keep in mind:
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With more than 25,000 codes, the key to becoming an expert Bloomberg user is to
Learning how to put a command together in Bloomberg is similar to learning another language. The example below provides the basic structure of a command.
BMC | Bloomberg Market Concepts 8-hour training course covering 70 functions across equities, fixed income, economics, and currencies | BPS | Bloomberg resource center for quick guides on market sectors and include top functions |
BI | for industry analysis covering a number of industries such as pharma, energy, financials, etc. | BRIE | Periodic news and updates from Bloomberg on economics, investing, deals, and regulation. |
MSG | the Bloomberg message system | HDSK | to retrieve Help desk messages |
TOP | to get news from around the world updated constantly and can be filtered by topic, language, and date | JOBS | to view job listings |
BTMM | for key rates | WEI | world equity indicies lists the benchmark indicies by geography |
EQS | Equity screening | SRCH | Bond Search |
EVTS | Events calendar | NIM | for new issues |
LEAG | League tables | BHL | Bloomberg Help and Learning for training on launchpad, Excel API, and specific markets |
ECO | find upcoming and past ecomomic releases | WECO | for world economic releases |
GLCO | Global commodity prices & data | FXGN | Foreign exchange rates |
These functions provide a market level view or are not tied to one specific security. Because of this, you do not use a yellow market key with them. For example, WEI <GO> will take you directly to a listing of major indicies worldwide.
Take a look at BHL <GO> for Bloomberg Help and Learning to discover the newest functions and guides.
To use Bloomberg, students and faculty must create a Bloomberg login to access the system. To create an account, go the Bloomberg terminal in the Parish Memorial Library and follow the steps below.
TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT:
Step 1: | Select the Bloomberg icon on the desktop. |
Step 2: | Once the system is completely loaded, press < GO > without entering a username or password. Select the option to create an account. |
Step 3: | Provide your cell phone number so they can text you a code to start the process. |
Step 4: | Follow the prompts on screen to create your account. This account will work on all of the Bloomberg terminals on campus. |
TO LOG-OUT:
Step 1: | Press the red < CONN/DFLT > key in the upper right of the keyboard. |
Step 2: | There is no step 2. You are good to go. |
The news feeds in Bloomberg are one of its most popular features.
TOP < GO > - to get to the top news screen. From here you can specify what kind of news items you want to view.
READ < GO > - to view the most popular news stories on bloomberg.
CN - to view company news. For example JNJ < EQUITY > CN < GO >
Click on the headline to view a story. You can also email or download the stories.
The attached questions (from Cornell Libraries) will navigate you through the different ways you can find information in Bloomberg as well as give you a sample of what types of information is available.