Monday, April 6, 2009

Pros and Cons of Blogging

Blog can be used in many in organization. A probable scenario could be to inform customers with timely information about the organization. The best advantage of this is that it's free to create a blog on internet with such site as blogger.com. Furthermore, it has the power to develop stronger relationship with the customer by showing the human face of the organization. This can develop in a stronger brand loyalty and the creation of a community where customers can comments on blogs and interact with others. Moreover, the blog can be a good way to get instant feedback from the customers. On the other side, blogs are maybe free, but they are time consuming a lot of time to create and this can be expensive. Also, a blog involves constant devotion in order to keep it updated. No doing so can result in a bad publicity for the organization. Since blog can be written by different employees with different views, a problem of coherence could appear. Consequently, this could also hurt the reputation of the company. For further info on how to promote organization by blogging see:
http://www.helium.com/items/571445-how-to-use-a-blog-to-promote-your-non-profit-organization
Reference
http://www.andreakay.com/personal/art_5054.htm
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_08_23_blogging.htm

Bloomberg pros and cons

As you all know, Bloomberg is a wonderful tool, but like every software, it has its share of drawback. Let's start by its pros, Bloomberg is the biggest financial database in the world. From equity quotes to NCAA scores, nothing is left behind. It is a one- stop software. It regroups all relevant application in order to trade, monitor your portfolio, research companies and evaluate them. For having it experienced myself, I can that the customer service is amazing. The real time assistant, help you navigate through all these information. The help service can do research for you and submit useful links. The customer service is clearly one of their major strength. On the other hand, it is probably one of the most expensive software. Its $1,800 per month makes it hardly accessible for most of the person. Furthermore, its impressive database makes it hard to find relevant information. For example, NHL scores don't have their place in financial information. Moreover, many critics are claiming that Law information is not updated and some of the information is not in real-time but rather per second. To see full reviews of users you can go to the site listed below. http://www.epinions.com/reviews/finc-Financial_Services-Financial_Applications-QCN-Bloomberg
reference:
http://www.epinions.com/reviews/finc-Financial_Services-Financial_Applications-QCN-Bloomberg
http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/public/review/www.bloomberg.com

Bloomberg Training

Bloomberg is a very powerful and complex tool, which required knowledge and skills to master it. Fortunately, the platform has included tutorial, workshop and a certification to help the customer to use it effectively. The tutorial mainly include pdf file explaining how to get started in Bloomberg. Workshops are available in major American cities where the Bloomberg users gather for a weekend to learn updates, short cut and specific function. These seminars are mainly for advanced users which already have their Bloomberg certification. The Bloomberg certification is offered freely on the application. It provides a certification in two distinct sectors such equity and fixed-income security. To earn the fully certification, users must earn both. Most of institutional users are required by their company to have it. It is considered a big asset to have for newly graduate seeking a position in finance. The course is composed of 3 introductory module common for both tracks and 5 modules on the specific area. The student needs to earn a minimum of 70% on each modules exam to pass the course. To start your qualification, you must type in the terminal Bloomberg University and tap . This will take you to the course which you need to create an account in order to have a proof of the certification. Further information can be find at http://mannlib.cornell.edu/instruction/tutorials/bloomberg/index.cfm, http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/bbcert.html
references:
http://mannlib.cornell.edu/instruction/tutorials/bloomberg/index.cfm,
http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/bbcert.html

Users and Usage of the Terminal

Bloomberg terminal is a all inclusive platform. It includes several applications in many different sectors. The Trading and liquidity sector is composed of four main applications which are Bloomberg Tradebook, Bloomberg Fixed-Income Electronic Trading, Bloomberg Execution Management Plan and Bloomberg FX Dealing. Bloomberg Tradebook is most often used by brokers-dealer, hedge fund manager, market-maker and portfolio manager to trade and clearing settlement. It is the main tool in trading. For liquidity purpose, Fixed-Income Electronic Trading allowed users to see the inventory of major dealers and make agreement without any fees. The foreign exchange dealing, include information on currency markets as well as foreign capital market. For the portfolio monitoring, the application Alpha enables users to evaluate their risk, performance and exposure in timely manner. It provides correlation analysis and calculates automatically key variables such as Alpha and Beta. The major component of the Bloomberg terminal is the equity section. It is the strength of the software and what makes it so widely used. Bloomberg provide the customer with major tools to do a fundamental analysis of a company. Starting from analyst consensus on GDP to growth and interest rate to in-depth company analysis, Bloomberg is renowned for having the biggest database in the industry. Also, it provides tools for chart drawing, company valuation and technical analysis. Furthermore, the platform allowed the user to extract the information and send it to a third party software to build their own model. More information about the tutorial can be learn at www.edscenter.utexas.edu/Bloomberg%20Tutorial%20Edited.ppt
reference:
http://about.bloomberg.com/product_trading.html
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bloomberg_terminal.asp

Bloomberg Terminal


Bloomberg terminal is software that gives real time information on stock, derivatives and financial news. It tracks more than 5 million financial instruments every day. It is a onetime shop for any capital market in the world. It also provides the user with a secure network to message across the world and a real time trading center. Furthermore, there is immediate help from Bloomberg operators. The terminal cost 1,800 per month to use, but it can go up quickly because many exchanges charge their own fees to trade. It is produces by Bloomberg L.P. which was funded by the New York mayor, Micheal Bloomberg. The customers of Bloomberg are mainly daily traders from big organization such as investment banks. There's 300,000 users around the world. Bloomberg software's rivals are Thomson Reuters which produce the popular Thomson One and other financial softwares such as value line. The typical terminal comes with 2 screens, a custom keyboard and a ultra performing PC. The terminal uses Windows as the operating system. The feature that really distinguish Bloomberg from its competitor it is its possibility to export its information to third party softwares such as Excel and Word in order to make your own calculation and build your own financial models. Further information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Terminal