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The green <HELP> key is an extra special key on the Bloomberg keyboard. Use it to search the entire Bloomberg system. Simply type in your search terms and hit the <HELP> key.
When on an unfamiliar page, hit <HELP> once to see what help documentation Bloomberg has available on that page/function. Hit <MENU> to return to the former screen.
The green <MENU> key is used to move up a level or to exit out of pop-up screens.
Information in the Bloomberg system is arranged hierarchically and in order to move higher up in levels you can use the <MENU> key.
If you want to go back to a previous screen you viewed, use the arrows at the upper left corner of the screen. These arrows act more like the forward and back buttons in a web browser.
Login Requirements:
After creating an account and logging into a terminal,
become familiar with the command syntax and
the functions built into the keyboard.
Note: The interface is reminiscent of pre-Windows/Apple computer interfaces.
<Red keys> -- used to login or logout of the system. You can only be logged into one terminal at a time.
Black keys -- used to enter tickers, function codes, search terms, date ranges, et cetera.
<Yellow market keys> -- used to tell Bloomberg in what market you want to look e.g. equities, commodities, etc.
<Green keys> -- used to make Bloomberg actually do something. You can type in the ticker for a security and hit the correct market key, but if you do not hit the green <GO> button Bloomberg will not do anything.
Typically when using Bloomberg, your command might look something like this:
TICKER <MARKET> FUNCTION CODE <GO>
Bloomberg provides a wide selection of guides / cheat sheets to help users learn to use specific functions within the system. Video tutorials will be added to the Tutorials & Cheat Sheets page as we find them.
(For example, see Supply Chain Analysis below.)