Want To Trade Stocks Like A Pro? Use The Bloomberg Terminals At CCB

Business Manager: Julian Cassady

When it comes to trading stocks, the first image that comes to mind is usually one of those complicated trading setups with multiple monitors containing various graphs and numbers on the displays.

What if I told you that as a Umass Dartmouth student, you have access to a room full of these state-of-the-art stock trading setups, completely free to use?

These computers are located in the technology center of the Charleton College of Business, right on the ground floor.

The machine is called a Bloomberg Terminal. A standard Bloomberg Terminal just looks like a dual-monitor computer setup.

But there’s more that lies at your fingertips.

One of the unique things you might notice after you sit down at the terminal is that the keyboard has an array of colored keys. There are red, green, blue, and yellow keys in addition to the standard black keyboard keys that aid in shortcuts to different functions used on the terminal.

All of this may seem daunting at first, and for a good reason!

Luckily, Umass has access to the Bloomberg Market Concepts course. This course comes with a downloadable certification upon completion and is a great resume builder for any student.

To get started with your BMC certification, look below the monitors, and there should be a paper copy of a quick start guide on how to sign up and begin.

After signing up, you’ll be taken to the course page that contains several learning modules.

In order to get the certification, only the 4 “core concepts” modules must be completed. The topics covered in the required modules are economic indicators, currencies, fixed income (bonds), and equities (stocks and stock derivatives).

Each module ends with an assessment. The assessment grades determine if you qualify for the Bloomberg certification.

There are two optional sections with their own array of learning modules; Getting Started On the Terminal and Portfolio Management.

Learning the core concepts is an excellent way to lay the framework of stock trading knowledge.

You can build off of that framework with the other two sections and achieve a working knowledge of how to use the Bloomberg Terminal to find economic information with ease.

Attached here is a link to a Bloomberg function cheat sheet.

Each function provides a shortcut to finding and displaying any economic data you can think of, from showing a company’s yearly financial statements to displaying a “heat map” of the performance of America’s top 500 companies.

The Bloomberg Terminal offers a cornucopia of tools and widgets at a steep price for those not enrolled at Umass Dartmouth.

Traditionally, a yearly subscription for one terminal costs $24,000.

There are 12 terminals inside CCB.

How does the school pay for nearly $300,000 worth of Bloomberg Terminal subscriptions?

Some CCB professors lecture to graduate students and alumni as a fundraising event. Some proceeds go to the professors, while the rest goes to fund the technology center.

Additionally, Bloomberg offers special financial packages to schools as well as discounts for purchasing multiple Bloomberg subscriptions.

The Bloomberg Terminals at Umass offer an incredible opportunity. Students get to utilize the full value of equipment that costs tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Unfortunately, many students don’t realize the treasure trove available to them, and so the Bloomberg Terminals often sit unused except for specific finance courses that use them on occasion.

With the power behind the Bloomberg Terminals, any student who is disciplined and devoted enough can trade stocks like the Wolf of Wall St.