What are the Best Alternatives to Bloomberg Terminal?

The best alternatives to Bloomberg Terminal are a strong competitor with the latter. These alternatives seek to offer similar features but at a much cheaper price.

What is Bloomberg Terminal?

Bloomberg Terminal can be described as computer software that gives users easy access to a range of professional services. These services include real-time financial information about companies, access to different markets including Currency, Equity, Commodities and so much more.

Users in 120 countries can use the Bloomberg Terminal. The software can be used alongside Excel to gain a better insight into its data. All a user has to do is to download the tool’s data to Excel spreadsheets. Coupled with that, users can gain seamless access to the software using a computer, smartphone, or a web-based application.

Offered as a service, Bloomberg Terminal does not come free. Here, a charge is levied on its subscribers on a monthly or yearly basis. The annual fee may go as high as $22,500 per user just to have the tool installed and gain access to its features. Accordingly, wealthy investors are the major users of this software, and those who wish to pay lesser have to share using a public facility. Read more about Bloomberg Terminal in our complete guide.

Advantages of Bloomberg Terminal

There are several pros of the Bloomberg Terminal especially when it is compared side by side with its competitors. Here are some of them:

Immense Value

For what its worth, you’ll be paying thousands of dollars for a tool that actually offers immense value. It has become a tool for institutional investors, portfolio managers, etc. to rely on to trade and monitor the financial markets. This tool has set a high standard for others that are also tailored to the financial market, data, news, messaging, etc.

Reliability

The Bloomberg Terminal can be relied upon in a lot of ways. It does not need trading firms to retrain to make the most of the tool. Much more, the tool has little or no downtime. There’s also the ease of navigating for new and old users of the platform.

Capabilities

There is more than one feature a subscriber of this software can take advantage of. Some of the Bloomberg Terminal’s features are News about the financial market. There’s also access to trade and monitor Equities, Derivatives, and a range of other markets.

Live Chat

Some users may also come to appreciate the live chat feature incorporated into this tool. Users can send messages to each other, a feature that has facilitated several Wall Street deals.

Connectivity

There’s an API connectivity feature that enables programmers to link applications based on languages such as Java, C#, Matlab, amongst others. A user can also use Microsoft Applications including MS Powerpoint and Excel. And with Excel, its spreadsheets provide a more simplified view of data.

Support

Users of the Bloomberg Terminal have attested that the service offers remarkable customer support. As such, prospective users can look forward to Bloomberg specialists who have been trained to handle different issues, respond to their concerns. Users can even take it one step further to have a representative over to help them through the installation process of the software.

Access Anywhere

The Bloomberg Terminal can be accessed from a PC or Mac. And this access can be done anywhere whether you’re at home or in the office. Therefore, you only need to access your account from a device of your choice.

Disadvantages of the Bloomberg Terminal

Admittedly, there are cons of the Bloomberg Terminal; here are some of them:

High Price

Wealthy investors are the major users of this tool and with good reason. For $20,000 or more per user each year, it is considerably expensive for a retail investor. Hence, this is a very pricey software.

Upgrades

A number of people have noted that Bloomberg has not been quick to make certain upgrades that will support newer hardware. Users have to wait until whenever these updates have been made to support their new hardware devices or fall back on the older models. An example of this delay is in the export compatibility required for 64-bit computers.

Limited Shared Features

It may be possible to share the Bloomberg Terminal, however, the benefits gained from the software cannot be compared to what a sole user of the Terminal gets. For instance, a user may also be unable to customize the tool since they are sharing with other users.

Best Alternatives to the Bloomberg Terminal

Here’s an outline of the best alternatives to the Bloomberg Terminal

Eikon

Thomson Reuters’ Refinitiv Eikon is a name that may be mentioned alongside Bloomberg Terminal since these two are each other’s biggest competitor. Eikon has a massive market share of almost 25%, which is considerably larger than other alternatives to the Bloomberg Terminal.

Features

Eikon provides data and news feeds in real-time. The platform supports different asset classes including Commodities, Agriculture, Energy, Metals, Equities, Fixed income, and FX. Sectors it covers are not limited to Hedge funds, Private Equity, Corporate treasury, and Wealth management. Interestingly, this platform offers a Macro Vitals app to enable you to gain insight into the economic impact of  COVID-19.

The software runs seamlessly on a computer with 8GB RAM and 5GB free disk space or a 4GB RAM and 1.6GB free disk space. You can run the software on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10 computers. Mobile support has also been provided.

Pricing

Eikon also has the expensive price Bloomberg Terminal is reputably known for. A user may have to pay as high as about $20,000 to gain access to all the tools this platform offers. Nonetheless, there’s a much cheaper subscription of around $3,600 each year but for access to specific features.

FactSet

FactSet is from the US-based company FactSet Research Systems Inc, a company founded in 1978. The software is also an alternative to Bloomberg Terminal, and it supports portfolio management, business advisory, and index services. Other services it offers are clients’ support and learning, implementation, and Transition.

Features

FactSet comes with an Excel plugin whose aim is to support Excel macros. There is also scrubbed data that aids cleansing data. The latter searches for data hidden in footnotes to offer a normalized non-GAAP data. The platform also shows geographic index exposure based on indexes. Some of these indexes are the Nasdaq composite, Germany DAX, EURO STOXX, S&P 500, etc.

On the other hand, you’ll find a range of products on this platform. An example is portfolio analytics, which comprises segments like Risk Analytics, Quantitative Research, Client & Portfolio Reporting, Performance Measurement & Attribution, Passive Investing, and Regulatory Compliance.

Pricing

FactSet is more affordable than the Bloomberg Terminal. Its subscription goes for $12,000 per year after which a user can get financial data from a range of sectors.

S&P Capital IQ

S&P Capital IQ is from the company S&P Global Market Intelligence founded in 1998. The software offers a range of array of financial data, research, and analytics. There’s also a range of tools to handle analysis, workflow management, and idea generation.

Features

Capital IQ can be accessed from a web browser, which takes away the need to ensure that you have compatible hardware to run it. Use any computer and you’ll be able to access this web-based platform.

Capital IQ also offers scrubbed data, a feature also evident on FactSet. This feature is essential for investment bankers and individuals in a similar niche. The tool also provides deep information that will help you to analyze a company’s performance. There are over 5,000 data items as well as metrics centered on a range of industries.

According to the platform, it has profiled around 62,000 public companies and 4.4 million private companies. You can also look forward to data on several commodities and futures markets. The same goes for macroeconomic data on employment, inflation, currency, trade, etc.

Pricing

Asides from the web-based interface, you can also look forward to a more affordable price than that of the Bloomberg Terminal. What is charged is $13,000 each year, which is considerably lower than the Bloomberg Terminal.

Koyfin

Koyfin is a financial data and analytics platform that was founded in 2016. The platform enables users to monitor stocks and market trends. Koyfin took advantage of one major setback of the Bloomberg Terminal, which is its high price. As such, this software is a free solution for investors looking for a more affordable alternative to the Bloomberg Terminal.

Features

Koyfin has a simple and intuitive user interface. Hence, you can use the platform with ease and familiarize yourself with features like Advanced Graphing, My Dashboards, Macro Dashboards, and Financial Analysis.

You’ll also gain access to different financial markets including stocks, ETFs, Mutual funds, commodities, currencies, etc. There’s also the latest news crawled from social media pages like Twitter and even from the SEC’s website. Hence, users can garner the latest news pertaining to different markets.

Pricing

According to Koyfin, you don’t have to pay a dime to join its platform since it is more focused on amassing users at the moment. As such, all its features are currently free to access. However, it is working up fees for certain features and these fees will be rolled out at a later time. The platform adds that when these fees have been set, they’ll be considerably cheaper than what its competitors are offering for premium features.

Symphony

Symphony was launched in 2014, and it is backed by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and other reputable names in the financial industry. The platform was once a messaging service that linked to a number of financial firms. Today, it has expanded thanks to a partnership that will see that the news, analytics, and other data offered on Thomson Reuters are displayed on Symphony.

Features

Symphony is backed by financial experts hence, it has been tailored with tools to meet the needs of individuals and businesses in the finance industry. These features also set a competition for the Bloomberg Terminal. What’s more, you also get to send messages, automate trade flows, and even share files in real-time.  You get to send these messages with high-level security, while at the same time, accessing relevant news about the financial markets.

Pricing

Symphony has an inexpensive subscription fee per month for small businesses. There are other plans tailored to enterprise clients. In all, this service is more affordable than the Bloomberg Terminal.

Conclusion

Bloomberg Terminal is a great software for anyone looking to keep track of the financial markets. Its range of tools makes it easy for individuals to trade and monitor companies they’ve invested in. While these tools are remarkable, its high price often makes it more unaffordable to small investors. Therefore, the alternatives to Bloomberg Terminal allows you to access similar features and pay considerably less.