Students prepare for City life in Bloomberg trading room

Posted Thursday 20 December 2012

PhD student John Pereira, pictured right, said it was really useful to be familiar with the technology used by traders. Kingston Business School - which last year won the Universities' Trading Challenge cup - is one of only a handful in the United Kingdom offering direct use of Bloomberg data, information and analytics in a special trading room which proves students with a taste of working on a real trading floor.

Access is through a suite of Bloomberg terminals in a dedicated simulated dealing room located in one of the University's learning resources centres. "The idea was to better prepare students for the job market," Dr George Alexandrou, principal lecturer from the Department of Accounting and Finance explained. "Students are given a competitive edge in the increasingly difficult graduate jobs market by having hands-on experience of this industry-standard software and our aim is to provide students with the theory and practical experience needed to succeed in financial, banking and related markets."

According to Dr Alexandrou, the trading room facility gives students a competitive advantage when seeking employment. "It enables job-seekers to demonstrate that they can quickly contribute to the employer's business. In certain City jobs, the ability to use Bloomberg terminals is as important as being able to use Microsoft Office," he said.

The students can use the terminal to get real-time stock, bond or commodity prices and news on companies, industries and global markers. The service provides relevant information and market data to more than 35,000 market professionals around the world.

"We are very pleased that here at the Kingston Business School we have a full subscription to Bloomberg services and offer our students access and training through 12 twin-screen full trading stations," Dr Alexandrou said. "The use of Bloomberg is now being integrated into the teaching on many modules in our MSc in Banking and Finance and other Masters programmes."

Students can also enrol for free in Bloomberg's Product Certification Programme.

"I use it for my data collection because, in finance terms, anything under the sun can be accessed on those terminals and it gives you the perspective of a City trader because they use the same interface," John Pereira, who is completing a PhD in Corporate Credit Risk at the University, said. It was also really useful to be familiar with the technology used by traders, he added. "For a young graduate who wants to make a career in this field it is really helpful to understand and be able to use Bloomberg software as that's an essential technical skill for a trader to have," he said.

Bloomberg was founded in 1981 and provides relevant market information and data to more than 35,000 market professionals around the world.