Bloomberg Review.
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use the Bloomberg terminal to check market prices, news, and economic data. We also use the Excel function from Bloomberg for most of our spreadsheets, including fundamental-related data for public companies and economic data. The product addresses the market information and availability of financial and accounting indicators problems in a timely manner.
Pros
- Check companies' multiples (NTM P/E or NTM EV/EBITDA) in an easy way by using the GF function.
- Provide a quick overview of economic indicators with the ECTS function.
- Provide a comprehensive view of shareholders for companies with the HDS function.
Cons
- Companies' expectations (MODL function) have lots of room for improvement. It doesn't allow for use in valuation (GF function) and doesn't have a good enough historical data compared to competitors such as Visible Alpha.
- The BQL function is very confusing, has no effective learning materials, and not enough training from the Bloomberg sales rep, in my opinion.
- FA function lacks Non-GAAP adjustments for the non-GAAP numbers provided by companies.
Return on Investment
- The terminal is an important part of our research process. We use the supply chain function for example when researching new companies.
- The terminal allows us to have a quick overview of past performance for stocks during earnings season (ERN function).
- The terminal is very good at synthesizing the main industry indicators in the Bloomberg Intelligence functions for each industry.
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Visible Alpha, S&P Capital IQ, AlphaSense, VerityRMS, Third Bridge and Tegus
Other Software Used
Visible Alpha, AlphaSense, Third Bridge