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Bloomberg:: Getting Started With Bloomberg

The document provides an overview of how to use the Bloomberg terminal. It discusses setting up an account, logging in, navigating the menu-driven system using keyboard shortcuts, getting help, printing, emailing and downloading data, logging off, and some useful GO commands to retrieve company and market information quickly. Navigation relies on color-coded keyboard keys that access functions, sectors, panels, and help. The help key provides keyword searches, explanations of functions, and access to the Bloomberg help desk. Users can print, email, download data and news articles to export from the terminal. Logging off securely is also recommended.

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drjoestan
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77 views

Bloomberg:: Getting Started With Bloomberg

The document provides an overview of how to use the Bloomberg terminal. It discusses setting up an account, logging in, navigating the menu-driven system using keyboard shortcuts, getting help, printing, emailing and downloading data, logging off, and some useful GO commands to retrieve company and market information quickly. Navigation relies on color-coded keyboard keys that access functions, sectors, panels, and help. The help key provides keyword searches, explanations of functions, and access to the Bloomberg help desk. Users can print, email, download data and news articles to export from the terminal. Logging off securely is also recommended.

Uploaded by

drjoestan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bloomberg: Bloo

Getting Started with Bloomberg

§ The Bloomberg System


§ Setting up an Account
§ Logging In
§ Navigating the System
§ Getting Help
§ Printing, Emailing and Downloading Data
§ Logging Off
§ Some Useful GO commands
Academic Information Services USC Marshall School of Business

The Bloomberg System


The Bloomberg Professional service is the interactive, financial information network that is Bloomberg's
core business. Available 24 hours a day to more than 260,000 professionals in over 100 countries, the
service seamlessly integrates data, news, analytics, multimedia reports and e-mail into a single platform. It
is used by market professionals around the world to make informed decisions and to complete
transactions — in any currency and in a way that is meaningful, accurate, and consistent.
Bloomberg uses a menu driven system that takes some getting used to but has many powerful features
that can make your research easier. Bloomberg is available on a first-come, first-served basis in JKP 201.

Setting up an Account
Our subscription to Bloomberg allows us unlimited logins and all Marshall graduate students may create
their own personal login. A personal login allows you to customize the Bloomberg display, send and
receive email messages, register for Bloomberg training events and receive Bloomberg Magazine.
Create your personal login at the Bloomberg terminal. Push the red <CONN/DFLT> key and follow the
prompts. Use a cell phone number in your contact information as the Bloomberg analytics desk will call
you to confirm your account and you need to be logged in to complete the process. You will be able to log
in and use the system immediately but not all features will be activated until your account is confirmed.

Logging in to Bloomberg
Hit the red <CONN/DFLT> key. Enter your use rid and password. If you don’t have one, press the GO
key and follow the prompts. You can also login using our school-wide account:
Userid: USCMARSHALL
Password: TROJANS
Logins are not case sensitive.

Navigating the System


Bloomberg is a menu driven system. You can use the mouse for some features but your navigation will be
faster if you use the keyboard shortcuts. All functions in Bloomberg have a mnemonic of three or four
letters and all of them can be accessed at any time. Bloomberg also uses a unique keyboard that puts
common functions at your fingertips. The keyboard groups these functions by color:

Color Function
Red Login/Logoff
Green System Navigation/Action
Blue Panel Navigation/Special Characters
Yellow Market Sectors

Type <ALT-L> at any time to display a picture of the Bloomberg keyboard. You can then click on any
key to see a description of its function.

Getting Started with Bloomberg.doc 1/8/03 Page 2


Academic Information Services USC Marshall School of Business

More on Navigating the System


The Green Keys
The Green Keys navigate through your results. These are the most frequently used:

Key Function
Page Fwd Move forward one page
Page Back Move back one page
Menu Goes back one command
Home Returns the cursor to the top of the page
Help Several functions; see below.
The Yellow Keys
The Yellow keys link to information on market sectors. Press any Yellow key to get a menu of available
functions for that sector. Yellow keys are also combined with other functions to define which sector to
search.
The Panel Key
Bloomberg runs in four panels, only two of which are visible at a time. You can navigate these using the
mouse and taskbar but it can be faster to use the Blue Panel key. Each time you press it the focus
advances one panel. Press it three or four times to display a panel that is hidden from view.
Operations in Bloomberg are in the form of Command GO Key. Commands can be strung together using
the yellow keys to define a sector: IBM <EQUITY> DES GO finds a business description of IBM. After
your initial command you can access other functions on the same company simply by typing Mnemonic
GO.

Getting Help
Bloomberg has extensive online help built into the system. The Help key serves several purposes in
addition:
· Keyword searches
· Help on a specific function
· Contacting the Bloomberg help desk

Keyword Searches
Type any word or words and hit <Help>. Bloomberg searches across all categories and displays your
results in sections. Type <section number> GO to display the results. This is often the fastest way to start
research on a company or topic.

Help on a specific function


Type <Help> on any screen to get a detailed description of the last command you performed. This is often
useful for determining how something is defined or describing how to change the parameters of a function
such as beta calculation.

Contacting the Bloomberg help desk


Type <Help> <Help> to bring up a screen for contacting the Bloomberg help desk, which is staffed
twenty-four hours a day. Your question will be routed to an appropriate person. Bloomberg guarantees a
fast email response or telephone call back from an analyst.

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Academic Information Services USC Marshall School of Business

Printing, Emailing and Downloading


Printing
Bloomberg is attached to a laser printer. This requires a Marshall print card; MBA student print quotas
cannot be used. Hitting the Print key will print the current page only. If your current result has multiple
pages, type # Print, where # is the number of pages you want to print. News articles can be printed by
clicking Options, Print.

Emailing
Type Grab GO to generate an image of your current screen. This will open an email dialogue that will
allow you to send your image to any address. News articles can be emailed by clicking Options,
Send/Store.

Downloading
Our contract allows downloading data to Excel but only on the workstation where Bloomberg is installed.
Most workbooks contain dynamic links to the Bloomberg data feed and these will not function on other
computers. You can copy and paste data to a text file and then export that to Excel. To do this, position
the cursor at one corner of your data then left click and drag to outline the data you want to save. Type
Ctrl-C to copy this to the Windows clipboard. Open notepad and type Ctrl-V to paste the data. Save this
as a text file and then use Excel’s Import Wizard to format it.
News articles can be saved by clicking on Options, Download. This will save the article as plain text.

Logging Off
Hit the red <CANCEL> key to log off of the system. This is important if you are using a personal login to
prevent others from using your email account.

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Academic Information Services USC Marshall School of Business

Some Useful GO Commands


All Bloomberg functions can be accessed from anywhere in the system by typing <command> GO. Many
of these can be combined with a company ticker symbol to get information on that company quickly.
Every function has a mnemonic that will be displayed in the top right corner of the screen after you select
that function. Learning these mnemonics can save you a great deal of time as you can simply type a
mnemonic rather than navigating through menus. This is a very small sample of GO commands that can
be helpful for new users. You can see a list of all GO commands for a sector by typing <Sector Key> (e.g.
Equity) GO, then the last menu number GO.
Commands that show <Equity> indicate that you press the yellow equity key between the ticker and the
mnemonic.

Mnemonic Function Usage


TOP Top news stories TOP GO
LAST Your last eight GO commands LAST GO
BU Bloomberg University: access BU GO
to training materials and
seminars
GRAB Captures your current screen GRAB GO
for emailing
DES Business Description Ticker <Equity> DES GO
ERN Earnings Estimates Ticker <Equity> ERN GO
ANR Analyst Recommendations Ticker <Equity> ANC GO
RELS Related Securities Ticker <Equity> RELS GO
GP; HP; GPO Various graphs of a Ticker <Equity> GPO GO
Company’s stock price
QSRC Stock screening search: Search QSRC GO
for equities based on user-
defined criteria
CACT Corporate Actions: CACT GO
Calendar of events that might
impact markets
CACS Corporate actions of a specific Ticker <Equity> CACS GO
company
BTMM Broad information on U.S. BTMM GO
Treasury and Money Markets
ECO U.S. Economic surveys and ECO GO
releases
MA Mergers and Acquisitions MA GO
Home Page. Current news and
deals.

Getting Started with Bloomberg.doc 1/8/03 Page 5

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