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Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

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Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#181

Post by neximo64 »

zimablue wrote: post #106
hazard wrote: post #11

It brings together a vast variety of otherwise extremely hard to find information. The keyboard is specialized because it literally reduces the number of keystrokes required to quickly access financial information. This is a business where seconds matter - even when you have humans talking to other humans to negotiate trades. Literally almost every piece of useful financial information is available via bloomberg. And…

This is hyperbole, I've worked on dev side in finance a while now and bloomberg data is often unreliable, everywhere I've worked people have built layers on top of it, checking vs other sources and fat fingers. Also I'm actually currently working for some oil guys and they use bloomberg for some things but use specialist providers for oil macro, shipping and refinery events. I'd say their main advantages are familiar…

You're kidding right? It is more than 99.99% correct guaranteed by an SLA. You can have errors as with any system but they're very open about it and correct it when its wrong & inform you, which is extremely rare (seen it only 1ce myself)

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#182

Post by sah2ed »

kgwgk wrote: post #107
lordnacho wrote: post #57

Longtime user of Bloomberg here, both finance and coding experience. You no longer need special hardware to use the terminal. In fact the special keys are just mappings to your F keys, and you'll know which one is which without the keyboard. They have a sticker strip if you really need it. BTW the keyboard is crap, the buttons aren't balanced meaning the keys kinda stick, making you type slower. Data is the only reas…

> For a lot of things such as common stocks, Yahoo and Google are not going to have any less information. This makes me wonder how much should I trust everything else you said...

Why do you say this?

(FWIW, I find many of lordnacho's HN contributions to be decent and in many cases insightful).

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#183

Post by tinalumfoil »

closeparen wrote: post #179
venning wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SIPRNet is probably an order of magnitude larger with over four million users [1]. Even more impressive considering it isn't connected to the Internet. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet

I wonder what exactly "isn't connected to the internet" means. Every time we build a military installation, we lay a dedicated cable from its nearest neighbor? That can't be right. Maybe it's mostly using satellite connections? Seems like there'd be many times (particularly in the US) where tunneling an encrypted connection over a civilian ISP would be worlds better than the next best option. Maybe not even at the IP…

Seems like they have their own network of satellites and terrestrial wires, with less secure stuff going through the internet. This is interesting enough to me that I'd research further but the amount of jargon and acronyms has turned me away.

> Provide DISN-provided transport and information services used for > data, voice, video, and cross domain through a combination of terrestrial, > aerial, satellite assets, and services IAW DODD 5105.19 (reference c). > Transport services include information transfer services between CC/S/A > installations, facilities, and enclaves, for connections to external mission > partner and defense contractor ISs and networks, and wide area network > information transfer.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120914011329/http://www.dtic.mi...

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#184

Post by rpedela »

lefstathiou wrote: post #119
lefstathiou wrote: post #114

I think Bloomberg is a lot weaker than people realize (in terms of competitive position). It offers a lot of functionality as many threads have pointed out but at any given time, the marginal user utilizes 0.5% of what it does. I sat in fixed income origination for years and the only reason I used it was to find some obscure pricing details which are now available for free elsewhere and to quickly export interest rat…

PS: Here is an example of a great niche tool we loved as analysts and associates with thousands of active professional users. It was created by one person on the side (now a team of two) and generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in fully automated revenue. The challenge is that those who use EDGAR frequently instantly see the utility but someone outside of the industry would not know this even exists or the prob…

I am curious what you find compelling about Bamsec? It certainly has a cleaner interface than EDGAR, but are there any other advantages?

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#185

Post by jamez1 »

Dealers need bbg, the social network in bbg chat drives some network effects, there's also a bit of tradition involved too. They tend to have less data issues than most but there's plenty still there.

Analysts and research roles aren't so beholden but bbg does data well while reuters does news well.

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#186

Post by pareidolia »

azernik wrote: post #141
hashkb wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep creating more vimpires every day. We will outlive GUI editor users by centuries.

What gives me real hope is the insertion of vim modes into GUI editors. It lets me use languages that need IDE assistance to be practical (I'm looking at you , Scala), while still holding on to the Old Ways.

Have you looked at https://github.com/ensime/ensime-vim ?

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#187

Post by thomasthomas »

This podcast will shed some light on your query: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/podcast-wall-streets-just...

“Bloomberg just wants you to be locked into the ecosystem and never, ever leave. It’s like the Hotel California of financial data.” — Robin Wigglesworth

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#188

Post by kgwgk »

sah2ed wrote: post #182
kgwgk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a lot of things such as common stocks, Yahoo and Google are not going to have any less information. This makes me wonder how much should I trust everything else you said...

Why do you say this? (FWIW, I find many of lordnacho's HN contributions to be decent and in many cases insightful).

There are lots of things on bloomblerg that cannot be found at google or yahoo... To name only a few: intraday market data, company filings, detailed/processed financial information (product/geographic segmentation, non-gaap metrics), transcripts of earnings calls, sell-side estimates, corporate actions (M&A, IPOs/secondary offerings), information about management, customers, suppliers, institutional shareholders...

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#189

Post by bbcbasic »

gist wrote: post #178
zimablue wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hyperbole, I've worked on dev side in finance a while now and bloomberg data is often unreliable, everywhere I've worked people have built layers on top of it, checking vs other sources and fat fingers. Also I'm actually currently working for some oil guys and they use bloomberg for some things but use specialist providers for oil macro, shipping and refinery events. I'd say their main advantages are familiar…

> This is hyperbole What I love about HN. I read one thing that sounds great and authoritative in a subject that I know nothing about. Just to have someone else rain on the parade! Which point of view is correct? I don't know (so I upvoted both..)

> sounds great and authoritative

"sounds" being the operative word. Lots of ... lets say 'articulate' people on HN, in general. Current thread excepted.

Re: Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?

#190

Post by jacobush »

cm2012 wrote: post #147
return0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could use their ai to match you with advertised products. You wouldnt need individual data in this case.

Still, the AI matches you into an "audience" which is targetable. It doesn't tell the advertiser that they're advertising to John, Jane, and Joaquin, specifically.

Unless you make gender a datapoint, and advertise to a group of 20, where only one is male. Oldest trick in the (face-) book.
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