Bloomberg Terminal vs. S&P Capital IQ

Depending on which area of the finance sector you may work in, the Bloomberg Terminal will have plenty of helpful functionality for you. Two specific scenarios for myself in the Structured Finance area are tracking the pricing benchmark and following outstanding deals in the market. You can follow progress of the deals, how well they are advancing, and final pricing details

Incentivized

Cap IQ is well suited for analyzing security pricing and valuation, tracking stock performance over time, looking up comparable transactions, and analyzing valuations on an industry basis. The service is also well suited for charting and data analysis purposes.

Incentivized

• Communicating with investors, banks, partners, etc
• Tracking key market metrics
• Monitoring existing and previous structured finance deals

Incentivized

• Plugins that change and analyze analysis improve it.
• Capital IQ is user-driven, unlike other market participants, which helps streamline the dashboard and acquire accurate data.
• Any report or analysis delivers the most in fewest words. In this data-driven world.

Incentivized

• Visual user interface
• A lot of functionality, need tutorials and lessons to narrow down
• Expensive!
• Some information may be delayed

Incentivized

• S&P Capital IQ's add-in slows down my Excel when I incorporate formulas into it.
• S&P Capital IQ's algorithms don't necessarily look in the footnotes of company filings, which can make for a less robust analysis of financials and multiples than desired.
• The user interface is not very user-friendly and thus makes maximizing the software's features difficult. It could be more intuitive to use and not so busy (e.g. not so many small icons on one web page). The S&P Capital IQ support team, however, is always available and very helpful.

Incentivized

[It's the] best ever.

Incentivized

While there are a lot of competitive services in the marketplace, each good in its own right, the Bloomberg Terminal is considered the top product. It has key fast information and can help individuals make fast decisions. It also has a top-tier support desk that can answer questions for you and teach you functionality to apply to your role

Incentivized

We had Capital IQ in addition to Bloomberg. It was much easier for a new person to use Capital IQ than Bloomberg. The ease of use was a huge selling point for us. Yahoo finance on the other hand is free, but you cannot gather all the data you may need in one location like you can in Capital IQ.

Incentivized

• Appropriate pricing of deals due to market comparisons
• Instant communication with key stakeholders
• Top and quick newsbreaks

Incentivized

• We were a boutique investment bank, so it helped multiple people doing their job at the same time instead of waiting for a turn on the Bloomberg terminal.
• Brought more interactive reports in PDF format to the table.
• Saved some money, if I have to go basic.

Incentivized