Finance Bros To Tech Bros: Don't Mess With My Bloomberg Terminal (wsj.com) 61
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: A battle of insults and threats has broken out between the tech world and Wall Street. What's got everyone so worked up? The same thing that starts most fights: business software. A series of social-media posts went viral in recent days with claims that AI has created a worthy -- and way cheaper -- alternative to the Bloomberg terminal, a computer system that is like oxygen to professional investors. Now "Bloomberg is cooked," some posters argued as they heralded the arrival of a newly released AI tool from startup Perplexity. [...]
The finance bros who worship at the altar of Bloomberg have declared war on the tech evangelists who have put all their faith in AI. To suggest that the terminal is replaceable is "laughable," said Jason Lemire, who jumped into the conversation on LinkedIn. (Ironically or not, his post also included an AI-generated image of churchgoers praying to the Bloomberg terminal). "It seems quite obvious to me that those propagating that post are either just looking for easy engagement and/or have never worked in a serious financial institution," he wrote. [...] Morgan Linton, the co-founder and CTO of AI startup Bold Metrics and an avid Perplexity Computer user, said it's rare for a single AI prompt to generate anything close to what Bloomberg does. That said, he added that tools like this can lay "a really good foundation for a financial application. And that really has not been possible before."
Others aren't so sure. Michael Terry, an institutional investment manager who used the terminal for more than 30 years, said he used a prompt circulating online to try to vibe code a Bloomberg replica on Anthropic's Claude. "It was laughable at best, horrific at worst," he said. Shevelenko acknowledged there are some aspects of the terminal that can't be replicated with vibe coding, including some of Bloomberg's proprietary data inputs. The live chat network, which includes 350,000 financial professionals in 184 countries, would also be hard to re-create, as well as the terminal's data security, reliability and robust support system. "I love Bloomberg. And I know most people that use Bloomberg are very, very loyal and extremely happy," said Lemire. His message to the techies? "There's nothing that you can vibe code in a weekend or even like over the course of a year that's going to come anywhere close."
The finance bros who worship at the altar of Bloomberg have declared war on the tech evangelists who have put all their faith in AI. To suggest that the terminal is replaceable is "laughable," said Jason Lemire, who jumped into the conversation on LinkedIn. (Ironically or not, his post also included an AI-generated image of churchgoers praying to the Bloomberg terminal). "It seems quite obvious to me that those propagating that post are either just looking for easy engagement and/or have never worked in a serious financial institution," he wrote. [...] Morgan Linton, the co-founder and CTO of AI startup Bold Metrics and an avid Perplexity Computer user, said it's rare for a single AI prompt to generate anything close to what Bloomberg does. That said, he added that tools like this can lay "a really good foundation for a financial application. And that really has not been possible before."
Others aren't so sure. Michael Terry, an institutional investment manager who used the terminal for more than 30 years, said he used a prompt circulating online to try to vibe code a Bloomberg replica on Anthropic's Claude. "It was laughable at best, horrific at worst," he said. Shevelenko acknowledged there are some aspects of the terminal that can't be replicated with vibe coding, including some of Bloomberg's proprietary data inputs. The live chat network, which includes 350,000 financial professionals in 184 countries, would also be hard to re-create, as well as the terminal's data security, reliability and robust support system. "I love Bloomberg. And I know most people that use Bloomberg are very, very loyal and extremely happy," said Lemire. His message to the techies? "There's nothing that you can vibe code in a weekend or even like over the course of a year that's going to come anywhere close."
lol (Score:2)
the finance bros "ai can't replace my bloomberg terminal" has some serious techbro "ai can't replace coders" vibes
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Perhaps both are right. Don't fiddle with stuff that users are accustomed to (Microsoft, I'm looking at you).
Or we could just have AI build a better gaming keyboard [slashdot.org]. And then sit back and watch the inevitable shit-storm.
Re: lol (Score:1)
Breaking news! AI has just confirmed that systemd is the superior init system!
Re: lol (Score:5, Funny)
And event logging system. And login service. And file space mounting manager. And boot manager. Its also a great dessert topping as well as a floor wax.
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AI might as well endorse VLIW while they are at it. Since only they can write such predictive compilers
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who make or lose millions on a single decision do not trust AI to change their decision making process.
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Why the fuck does my PDF reader need AI?
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Translation: You're in a knife fight. Someone hands you a gun. You peer down the barrel and go, "Why do I need this?"
I would LOVE a .PDF reader with AI. Being able to highlight passages on web pages and click "Explain this" in Firefox has been great. It's annoying that the same feature isn't as handy when reading .PDF articles and scientific papers. For added bonus points, give me the option to have the AI modify the .PDF itself with clarifying notes and references.
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Cos if people find out that AI can do whatever the "finance bros" are doing, they are out of a job.
Same with all other fields. Everyone is afraid that if AI gets into their industry, they may be out of a job.
I myself have just been fiddling around with AI, nothing extensive. Don't think you should trust the AI output blindly without verifying it. Often it is good enough, but you don't want to have a problem when it's not good enough.
If I am going to have to review everything, it's pretty much the same as me
um what (Score:1)
Bloomberg terminals are an immensely valuable source of up-to-the-second DATA. How is AI going to give you up to the second data? Could someone build a competitor to Bloomberg terminals? Yeah possibly but the hard part is not the computer code to make the terminal work. It's signing all the contracts to get you that DATA.
And even if it were functionally equivalent, it would not be interoperable as the article says. Plenty of underwriting agreements are written to say something like, the bond price will be t
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Look... I agree with most of what you're saying, and I don't think one should depend on a LLM generated solution for such work. However, this sentence from TFS:
"There's nothing that you can vibe code in a weekend or even like over the course of a year that's going to come anywhere close."
Old me, even with 0 experience vibe coding, would have jumped at that challenge. Can't be done? HA! I'll show you. And with all that's going on in that realm, I'm now pretty confident there will be a respectably functional alternative well before years end. Heck, they even have something that resembles it already - they could probably manually do the
Re: lol (Score:3)
"Sure, your Mac can make text come out of that laser printer, but it's crap. Look at it! People will always need professional photo-typesetting. They won't settle for anything less."
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How about "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:1, Insightful)
What the heck is a "Bloomberg Terminal"...and what makes it so special than any other computer terminal?
Re: WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:4, Informative)
stop insulting folks, asstard.
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But you're OK with people wasting everyone's time asking a question here that would literally be answered more quickly (and more completely) at any search engine?
Re: WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:4, Funny)
A quick definition of the program in the summary could of gone a long way but this is Slashdot, so par for the course.
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As is the namecalling asshole whining about it.
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I installed Google Idiot, and it doesn't work. Please advice.
E558: Terminal entry not found in terminfo /etc/vimrc:
line 1:
Interrupted
'bloomberg' not known. Available builtin terminals are:
builtin_ansi
builtin_vt320
builtin_vt52
builtin_xterm
builtin_iris-ansi
builtin_pcansi
builtin_win32
builtin_amiga
builtin_dumb
builtin_debug
defaulting to 'ansi'
Error detected while processing
Maybe builtin_dumb?
Re: WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:2)
I recall that Google idiot has a strong community following, especially among idiots who finally has a place to call their own. Google mothballed a free years back it as is their want. No obvious successor has come up in the marketplace
Re:WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:4, Informative)
the thing has its own fucking wiki page you incurious nonce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:5, Informative)
some folks would rather be insulting than answer a question or just keep their fingers still. here’s what kagi had to say:
The Bloomberg Terminal is a specialized software platform that provides financial professionals with real-time market data, news, analytics, and trading tools. It is considered a vital resource in the finance industry due to its ability to process vast amounts of financial information and deliver it quickly.
Key features that make the Bloomberg Terminal special include:
Comprehensive Data Access: It offers real-time global financial data, news, and analytics, enabling users to make informed investment decisions.
Advanced Analytics and Trading Tools: The terminal provides sophisticated tools for in-depth analysis and facilitates commission-free trades.
Efficiency and Accuracy: It is designed to boost efficiency and accuracy in financial analysis.
Communication Capabilities: The platform includes communication tools essential for financial professionals.
Industry Recognition: Its distinctive black interface has become a recognizable symbol within the financial community.
Developed by Michael Bloomberg, it has been a significant innovation in trading technology for over forty years. While it offers an "almost unfair advantage" for traders, its value for long-term investors is considered more complex.
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So it *definitely* looks like it could be replicated within a year.
Re:WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are the defacto tool not just because they bring that data together in a way no one else on the market has, but it has a level of vetting, security, and support for a system that you'd expect for a tool that the entire financial sector depends upon. AI could do some of the data manipulation, but it would take years to negotiate access to the sheer number of proprietary data sets they have access to and find professionals to train the models.
Re: WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a good summary.
I'll add that many XD people (eXperience Design: people who try to make software easy and pleasant to use, and better meet business goals with that software) take one look at a Bloomberg Terminal and just about have a stroke. For them, it's a coarse tool from another age that must be "fixed".
However, that impression is from a first glance with no user research. Terminal users love the Bloomberg for the reasons listed above. AND any change to it brings financial risk. AND they make a lot of money using it. AND (please don't discount the human element here), some get off on their mastery of a complex tool that most of us wouldn't touch. Mastery is a powerful driver here, just as it is in gaming. 'this is a tool for experts. I'm one and you're not because you can't.'
The way the Bloomberg terminal might get replaced is by new people who don't come up in the ranks using it, but using an alternative when there's a workable one, or more likely by AI trading directly (God help us...).
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I'll add that many XD people (eXperience Design: people who try to make software easy and pleasant to use, and better meet business goals with that software) take one look at a Bloomberg Terminal and just about have a stroke. For them, it's a coarse tool from another age that must be "fixed".
Many modern UI experts only know how to use user stories. Thus, everything they touch becomes a clone of a Microsoft Wizard.
Re: WTF is a Bloomberg Terminal? (Score:2)
Well. I was one of those before retiring after a decade and a half of it, and that's far from correct.
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As a few others have said, one look at a Bloomberg Terminal and you'll wonder if you've gone back to the 90s or something. From the outside, they look impenetrably hard to use, "one wrong keypress spells destruction" type stuff.
Getting good user experience information is hard. If you ask a trader, they don't want you to mess with it, because they've spent an age getting used to it, and they don't want to have to go through all that again - but do they actually love it? I doubt it, but they still don't want
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In finance, basically all data is bad quality. That is because there's some many arbitrary and non standard things that happen like corporate events, that can mean that a small percentage of the data is broken - which is unacceptable in finance.
Bloomberg is basically the only place that has perfect data. Perfect. It is the standard of truth.
And this is exactly why Perplexity wont be able to beat it. Bloomberg doesn't make money from the terminal software. It makes money from the proprietary data the termina
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It's paywalled resource for financial professionals that includes a lot of access to financial bigshots around the world as well as analysis.
I started listening to the local Bloomberg radio station because they will generally give up to the minute financial info which includes political decisions as they relate to finances. However, one needs to be careful. They do not understand environmental issues, they only care about a company making money. So they are blind to future environmental shocks that are buil
Will AI Hallucinations replace Gurman? (Score:2)
Mark Gurman says a lot of stuff about Apple that turns out to be false. How will that be functionally different from AI Hallucinations about Apple?
Re: Finance Brothers vs Tech Brothers (Score:2)
The terminal isn't just software (Score:5, Interesting)
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and this is the important part that perplexity will never match... in near real time.
That is just matter of buying your way in. Nothing stopping bigtech from doing that really.
I agree it won't be perplexity, but Anthropic, OpenAI, or Palantir wanted to diversify a bit, they have the capital and the technology to be a better Bloomberg then Bloomberg probably overnight, now can they get a very struck in their ways Wall Street to trust a name they haven't been reading for the last 30 years, that I don't know.
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i am not a trader, so take what i say with a grain of salt.
i believe it would be difficult if not impossible from an upstart company to get the firehose of data that bloomberg has. real-time data and the social media/network that comes with the subscription is essential.
Re:The terminal isn't just software (Score:4)
and this is the important part that perplexity will never match... in near real time.
That is just matter of buying your way in. Nothing stopping bigtech from doing that really.
Yes and no. Yes, getting real-time access to data is possible. No, that doesn't mean that you'll save money with some vibe-coded tool.
Bloomberg is doubtless making a profit at $24k to $27k per user per year, but don't expect the cost to drop to free or evey cheap if fast access to real-time stock data is a hard requirement. Most of what you're paying for is the delivery cost for the data, not the software or the hardware. Specifically, for larger installations (more than about 4 terminals), if I understand correctly, you're getting dedicated bandwidth to the firehose (leased line).
And of course, it goes without saying that using AI to analyze that firehose is not realistically possible. There's not enough TPU/GPU capacity on the planet. And I'm assuming that's what people are really hoping for. :-)
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> Most of what you're paying for is the delivery cost for the data,
lulz no, the vast majority of what your paying is pure profit. The actual data is fucking tiny unless they've managed to fuck it up magnificently. Compare it to the cost of streaming video.
They're buying access to the data from someone else, so not necessarily.
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I doubt it, but I don't know.
Bloomberg has positioned itself as a premium service at a premium price.
Currently, it delivers premium service for that premium price, and that costs. You are a Japanese (only) speaker working at 1am Tokyo time and you have an issue, and your call to Bloomberg will be passed to a fluent Japanese speaker in minutes.
Pretty much anything that a company issues, news, reports, financials, will make it to the Blo
Re:The terminal isn't just software (Score:4, Interesting)
There's already alternative software available already:
https://openbb.co/ [openbb.co]
(Don't worry it slightly predates AI, just contains today's mandatory buzzwords)
Just a WSJ Unpaid Bloomberg Advert (Score:1)
You have a bloomberg terminal to see it first. (Score:4, Informative)
Bloomberg Terminals frequently deliver breaking financial, corporate, and economic news several minutes—and sometimes longer—before it appears on regular public news outlets. Bloomberg News reporters often feed information directly to the terminal's "speed desk," where headlines are published in real-time for subscribers, often beating conventional news channels, website updates, or press releases.
So funny (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the day... when I got started, you could get an IT job in silicon valley by being young and willing to learn... but you could not progress higher without a degree. But that experience was enough to land you a mid-level position in NY servicing the finance industry. That experience was enough to land you a senior position back on the west coast.
It was a common career path. Entry level in CA tech industry => Mid level in NY Finance systems => Senior level in tech. CA tech bros cut our teeth on High Availability Finance systems. Trust us, bro.
This is an example of a Chesterton Fence (Score:5, Insightful)
The Bloomberg Terminal is a critical piece of financial infrastructure. It has its issues, to be sure, but it's stable, functional, and has been tested under serious duress for a very long time...so it works. This is not some unimportant app or transient service or game; it's actually important in the real world.
Could it be replaced? Sure. But it's not going to replaced by the kind of slop that vibe coding churns out. If it's replaced, it will be replaced by the work product of superb designers, excruciatingly careful developers, and fanatical testers working together for years with professionals who've been in the field for decades.
I've been in this field for close to half a century, and I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the ignorance, illiteracy, and arrogance of young and inexperienced tech bros whose world view is so constricted, so limited, so myopic that it never occurs to them that no, they do not know the answers to everything, and yes, some of us cranky geezers who have actually been there and done that might know a thing or two that has thus far eluded them and maybe, just maybe, they ought to shut up, sit down, pay attention, take notes, and learn -- if they're capable of learning.
Re:This is an example of a Chesterton Fence (Score:4, Informative)
I've been in this field for close to half a century, and I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the ignorance, illiteracy, and arrogance of young and inexperienced tech bros whose world view is so constricted, so limited, so myopic that it never occurs to them that no, they do not know the answers to everything, and yes, some of us cranky geezers who have actually been there and done that might know a thing or two that has thus far eluded them and maybe, just maybe, they ought to shut up, sit down, pay attention, take notes, and learn -- if they're capable of learning.
It is painful to watch at times, yes. Especially when they do not understand fundamental engineering principles like KISS and "if it is not broken, do not fix it" or think that all new tech much be much better than all old tech. Fortunately, there are quite a few young people with a much better understanding of things. Many of my IT security students are actually much better in this regard. But all those that are mindlessly arrogant will at least retard getting real insight and experience and may prevent it altogether.
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Did anyone actually read the tweet? (Score:3)
Now "Bloomberg is cooked," some posters argued as they heralded the arrival of a newly released AI tool from startup Perplexity.
The tweet was a joke (emphasis mine)...
Bloomberg is cooked.
... snip ...
I just asked Perplexity AI to vibe code a Bloomberg Terminal replacement.
3 hours and 80,000 lines of code later, Perplexity rebuilt the Terminal in one shot:
None of it worked.
Data sources weren’t normalized.
Tickers mismatched across exchanges.
Some numbers were creative.
But boy was that dark-mode beautiful.
Muscle memory matters / snake oil (Score:2)
Trading is an extremely fast-paced, high-stakes job. Operators must be able to execute instructions fast and with confidence, and the current terminal is the result of decades of wisdom and experience, and it ensures instructions are processed reliably and in the right order. They've been to hell and back. They've learnt what works and what doesn't. Suggesting that a new, vibe-coded version of the software could replace it, is a true insult and a cheap attempt at making money off something that ain't broken
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Pixels shmixels, what about the keyboard accelerator key for the button?
Yeah right (Score:2)
Pretty sure that given a year, an robust alternate to Bloomberg can be created.
As said, it's the proprietary data feeds that are the real issue.
Chat is the terminal's killer app (Score:2)
A lot of posts are debating various features and datasets that the Bloomberg terminal provides. Those are comprehensive, but have also been available from other providers for a long time (Reuters, anyone?). Bloomberg buys nearly all of the data from third parties.
The terminal also has a chat system requiring biometric verification that is connected to every person in the finance industry relevant to your job. You can communicate with them securely and traceably, making it possible to arrange transactions
The relationship traders have with the Bloomberg i (Score:2)