Bloomberg Terminal: How to Use

Bloomberg Professional Standalone Terminal’s Log-in Requirement:

• Both UTSA Libraries and Alvarez College of Business don’t have access to Bloomberg Anywhere - an equivalent to the Bloomberg Terminal via the web.
• Bloomberg is only available on designated workstations at UTSA.
• For first-time user of Bloomberg, after you log into a designated Bloomberg workstation at UTSA, then you must register with the Bloomberg system by using your UTSA email, in order to get your log-in ID and password from Bloomberg.
• Note:  UTSA (UTSA Libraries and College of Business) has no subscription to web-based Bloomberg Anywhere.

Locations of designated workstations at UTSA:

• At the Business Building: 13 terminals in Financial Studies Center (located on the first floor BB 1.01.04) and 2 terminals in the Advanced Projects Lab (located on the 3rd floor BB 3.02.14) 
• At the 2nd floor of JPL Information Commons:: workstation #018 -  the only one Bloomberg station available at UTSA Libraries.  The workstation #018, with a unique Bloomberg Terminal’s keyboard, is located near the Quiet Study Room, and users have to first use a UTSA computer log-in ID and password (UTSA credentials) to log into this workstation, then log into Bloomberg Terminal. If there is any problem with the Bloomberg terminal at JPL 2nd floor, we would have to notify CoB IT Service as they're the ones who handle the Bloomberg terminals at UTSA.

Content:  The Bloomberg system provides current and historical financial and economic data (including equities, commodities, and corporate bonds, etc.) and financial, political, and business news as well.

Interface: While Bloomberg is menu driven, its interface is not so user-friendly since it is command-based.  That means users have to press a special key or type a command on a special line at the top of the Bloomberg terminal screen to run the function/command.  In this sense, the interactive ways within the Bloomberg terminal are pretty much like in the old MS-DOS environment.

Keyboard:  The Bloomberg Terminal has its own special keyboard on its terminal.  Click this link to see what functions the red / yellow / green keys are used for, or click another link here for details. Of particular importance to know on this special keyboard is the functions of a number of yellow Market Sector Keys from F2 to F11.  For instance: 

• F3= CORP (Corporate debt / bond) , 
• F8 = Equity (Stock markets),
• F9 = CMDTY (Commodities, futures, options), etc. 

For all the functions from F2 to F11, please see the "Yellow Market Sector Keys" box, which is just underneath this box. 

F2 = GOVT: Worldwide sovereign and agency securities
F3 = CORP: Corporate Debt
F4 = MTGE: Mortgage Securities including MBS, ABS, CMO, etc.
F5 = M-MKT: Money market
F6 = MUNI: Municipal Debt issued by U.S. municipalities
F7 = PFD: Preferred Shares
F8 = EQUITY: ADRs, mutual funds, rights, stocks, options, warrants
F9 = CMDTY: Commodities, futures, options, spot rates
F10 = INDEX: World financial markets, economic indices.
F11 = CRNCY: Spots, futures, options on over 100 currencies