Skip to Main Content
Libraries Indiana University Bloomington

Bloomberg Terminal, Datastream and SDC Platinum

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is a media syndicate (similar to the Fox Corporation) specializing in finance and finance software. This guide primarily concerns Bloomberg terminal, or Bloomberg Professional® service, one of the most powerful and flexible platforms for financial professionals who need real-time data, news and analytics.

However, Bloomberg might refer to other things, such as:

  • Bloomberg Businessweek is a weekly business magazine that focuses on America. IU students have access to archived issues and its current publications.
  • Bloomberg Certification or Bloomberg Market Concepts is an electronic resource that provides an interactive and visual introduction to the financial markets. It takes approximately 8 hours to complete to receive a certificate of completion. Check the tab on this guide to find out about this certification.
  • Bloomberg.com is a leading provider of global business and financial information. It provides news in several different formats that allows individuals to consume their information in an easy and accessible way.

 

Bloomberg Access at Business/SPEA Library

Blooomberg can only be accessed via the Bloomberg terminals. There are three terminals in the Business/SPEA Library.

  • You can reserve a time online to use the terminals. Terminals can be reserved in 2-hour blocks, up to 4 hours a day per person.
  • Reservation are recommended. If the terminals are not reserved, the terminals are available on a first-come/first-serve basis.

Bloomberg Help

Help:
Investopedia's Beginner's Guide to the Bloomberg Terminal

Keyboard Shortcuts (on the terminal)

  • Use the green <HELP> key on the Bloomberg keyboard to get information about the screen you're currently viewing.
  • Hit the green <HELP> key TWICE on the Bloomberg keyboard to open a live chat with a Bloomberg specialist.

Technical Assistance
Ask the reference assistant or email libbus @ indiana.edu

Data Limits

If you're encountering data limits while using the Bloomberg Terminal please note:

You can have no more than 3500 real time fields open at the same time. If you exceed this limit you will see "NA Limit" as error message and you need to delete some securities/fields in order for the error message to disappear and to see the values. 

We also have a daily limit. The daily API limit is 500,000 hits/per day. A "hit" is defined as one request for a single security/field pairing. Therefore, if you request static data for 5 fields and 100 securities, that will translate into a total of 500 hits so try to refresh just the portion of the spreadsheet that really needs to be refreshed and avoid refreshing it all or reopening it many times a day. 

There is also a monthly limit, but it is rare that we actually hit this limit. The limit is based on unique securities and depends on the type of data being downloaded. 

Please see the document below for information on managing data usage limits.