I accidentally found out that Bloomberg costs $2000/month in this article and the price will go up to $2500/month by January 2023. As for me, it is expensive, but maybe if you work in this area in order to use this information 100%, then apparently the price tag will be justified by this.
Yep, we had bloomberg and Reuters terminals on our desks in my treasury dealing days. Powerful financial markets information tools and essential. Bloomberg doesn't offer volume discounts either. The investment bank I worked had about 30 bloomberg terminals. Still $2k per terminal per month and it's a minimum 24 month contract. Reuters is a bit more reasonable and flexible.
It's a connection to the Bloomberg proprietary information "Intranet" (for lack of a better term). Years ago they provided a specific terminal (the box and screen) and paid per screen. Now it's all software based but you still pay per subscription over 2-3yrs. Companies pay big money for it because there's a number of analytics services built in and you can also use it to power automated trading or similar ventures.
That's interesting thank you for sharing. Basically paying for access to whatever Bloomberg knows that hasn't hit public realm yet.
They aggregate news as does Reuters, but they also provide access to analytics and other research which when combined with the news/other data they hold can be a powerful information tool. The only market data that is better for powering algorithmic decision-making is actual raw trading data/orderflow.
Those who are paying for financial datastream subscription from Bloomberg, are also paying for a data latency guarantee.
Everything Bloomberg knows is public or behind a paywall ie Reports from Big Banks. But as a client of Bloomberg you have access to it. Plus the ability to cross reference the information from other sources Much like new news article in AFR, bits are floating around the web, but to get full access you need to pay AFR direct or other aggregators. Nothing is secret and all news is basically free. The difference is a trader is willing to pay Bloomberg $2k to $3k a month to get the information now in a curated form or after 8 hours to 48 hours latter as the news proliferates around the web. In a nutshell a trader is paying for someone/company to source, analyse and curate. There are others like IRESS similar but also have other functionality
Latency would be separate, I look after major banks IP network, though more accurately my team builds and maintains the Dark Fibre network.
As some other members have correctly mentioned, a terminal is a single distribution point of either Bloomberg or Reuters data to a user’s computer. In the old days it used to be a Bloomberg or Reuters specific computer terminal, now days it can be delivered to any nominated generic computer. Above discussions seem to center around equity markets but they (Bloomberg & Reuters) are also critical tools in the global wholesale interbank markets. So interbank treasury products like fixed income, money markets and Forex. As an example. If I were an investment bank’s trader on an interest rate derivative desk and I was looking for a 6 x 9 FRA (Forward Rate Agreement) in say 250mil, I would have no choice but to use Reuters & Bloomberg for that info, along with talking to inter-dealer brokers. It’s really an industry (interbank treasury, equity & commodity) specific tool.
There is also another side to Bloomberg & Reuters Dealer (not to be confused with Reuters Terminal). They are communication tools between dealers and brokers. Sounds like a bit of overkill when have internet and email but bear in mind tho, these tools were in operation long before that. Dealers and Brokers can be searched and contacted on these tools, not so much the internet. Besides, most dealers and brokers will be watching there Bloomberg & Reuters all the time, so will see msgs pop up. They won’t necessarily be watching their email inbox.
