Bloomberg for Teaching and Research

The Centre for Accounting, Banking and Finance parked under UTAR’s Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised a talk titled “Bloomberg for Teaching and Research”. It was presented by UTAR FBF lecturer William Choo Keng Soon on 10 July 2018 at Kampar Campus. The talk saw the participation from many academics, faculty members and FBF students.

Choo

Choo started the talk by giving a brief introduction about Bloomberg terminal. He described, “Bloomberg terminal is a computer software system, provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. It enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to retrieve, monitor and analyse real-time financial data.” Choo had the experience of using the Bloomberg Terminal for his analysis work in an Investment Bank some years ago.

Currently, there are eight Bloomberg terminals at Kampar Campus Main Library with six of the terminals having double screens. The system provides comprehensive data for analysing securities with information available for markets on securities, equities, foreign exchange, commodities and derivatives. Additionally, the system also provides comprehensive economic data and analysis. In his presentation, Choo showed detailed screenshots of the available tools and functions such as charts, integration with Microsoft Office Applications, market monitors and analysis.

Using the security finder function, he covered the basics of data searching by showing how to search by name, country, people and other topics. He also highlighted that much information is readily available from the system, saving time when it comes to retrieving data especially from company financial reports.  The terminal also offers details of stock transactions of substantial shareholders, something which is not easily available elsewhere.

Choo describing the functions of Bloomberg in teaching and research

In his talk, he also showed how information showed on the screen can be customised, allowing for a convenient side by side comparisons. Other functions include the export function where the user can export the information on to a PDF or Excel file and where the data can further be handled in the spreadsheet, showing integration capability with the Microsoft Excel Application.

Choo highly encouraged the participants to explore and make use of the system for their teaching and research to appreciate its many functions and capabilities.

The informative talk was followed by a lively Q&A session.