<story><title>Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?</title><text>From what I understand so far, it&amp;#x27;s just a portal that gives the news. What I don&amp;#x27;t get is why have a custom monitor, keyboard? I am not sure how is the network connected, is it a VPN. The cost of the product is ridiculous. I do not understand why are people paying for it. Is there a cheaper alternative that does not require specialised hardware? I know Bloomberg is a politician, has he managed to pass some ridiculous law that forces everyone to pay for his product?&lt;p&gt;P.S.: I do not understand Finance or the wall street world. But I am curious to know about the tech they use and why they are paying a huge amount for it.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>hazard</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;Literally almost every piece of useful financial information is available via bloomberg. And I don&amp;#x27;t mean relatively basic info like &amp;quot;What&amp;#x27;s the current yield the Apple 3.85% of 2043?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;What&amp;#x27;s the current CDS spread for Citibank?&amp;quot; that you can easily google for but also stuff like &amp;quot;Which oil tankers are in for repair right now, and what are their capacities?&amp;quot; and similar info on power plants, international agriculture, equities, interest rates, etc.&lt;p&gt;Experienced bloomberg users have their most-used keystrokes in their muscle memory. Less experienced users can hit F1 twice and immediately be connected to a live bloomberg rep who will research your question for you (although it may take 20 minutes for them to figure it out).&lt;p&gt;Bloomberg Chat is also extremely important, as others have mentioned.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zimablue</author><text>This is hyperbole, I&amp;#x27;ve worked on dev side in finance a while now and bloomberg data is often unreliable, everywhere I&amp;#x27;ve worked people have built layers on top of it, checking vs other sources and fat fingers. Also I&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;d say their main advantages are familiarity and some information oligopolies</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What is so great about Bloomberg Terminal?</title><text>From what I understand so far, it&amp;#x27;s just a portal that gives the news. What I don&amp;#x27;t get is why have a custom monitor, keyboard? I am not sure how is the network connected, is it a VPN. The cost of the product is ridiculous. I do not understand why are people paying for it. Is there a cheaper alternative that does not require specialised hardware? I know Bloomberg is a politician, has he managed to pass some ridiculous law that forces everyone to pay for his product?&lt;p&gt;P.S.: I do not understand Finance or the wall street world. But I am curious to know about the tech they use and why they are paying a huge amount for it.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>hazard</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;Literally almost every piece of useful financial information is available via bloomberg. And I don&amp;#x27;t mean relatively basic info like &amp;quot;What&amp;#x27;s the current yield the Apple 3.85% of 2043?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;What&amp;#x27;s the current CDS spread for Citibank?&amp;quot; that you can easily google for but also stuff like &amp;quot;Which oil tankers are in for repair right now, and what are their capacities?&amp;quot; and similar info on power plants, international agriculture, equities, interest rates, etc.&lt;p&gt;Experienced bloomberg users have their most-used keystrokes in their muscle memory. Less experienced users can hit F1 twice and immediately be connected to a live bloomberg rep who will research your question for you (although it may take 20 minutes for them to figure it out).&lt;p&gt;Bloomberg Chat is also extremely important, as others have mentioned.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwawayish</author><text>Oh. I&amp;#x27;m European and I always wondered why in practically every American criminal-spy-scifi-investigative-themed TV show or movie there are people sitting at magical, proprietary computers able to find strange pieces of (personal) information in no time (but obviously always complex to use, because other characters don&amp;#x27;t know how).&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t know about the &amp;quot;Bloomberg Terminal&amp;quot; before, but now that makes &lt;i&gt;a lot&lt;/i&gt; more sense where that idea comes from.</text></comment>