Bloomberg Intelligence: delivering insight and analysis to finance’s global decision makers

For comprehensive and nuanced knowledge about any security, Bloomberg Intelligence is the ideal place to start your research. The 300 BI research professionals around the world take pride in the fact that they don’t let buy/sell ratings influence their work. They want you to draw your own conclusions.

With roughly 100,000 reads per day, BI’s reports offer independent, fact-driven insights for Bloomberg’s equity, fixed income, C-suite, and investor relations clients. To better understand the wide-ranging scope of the department’s analysis, we take a closer look at the inner workings of the BI team.

What is Bloomberg Intelligence?

“Bloomberg Intelligence is Bloomberg’s investment research department,” explains Dave Dwyer, BI’s global lead. “We provide insights into 140 industries and 2,000-plus companies. We identify major themes and determine how they could affect the value of securities, like bonds and stocks.”

Say, for example, a client is thinking about investing in AT&T. BI’s multifaceted company primer focused on the company addresses factors affecting its prospects, including government policy, critical litigation, credit risk, and relevant industry trends. The primer reveals the factors that will influence AT&T’s securities prices over the short, intermediate, and long-term. With BI, the client has access to comprehensive in-depth research on AT&T, including financial reviews.

How BI fits into Bloomberg

BI’s offerings are especially attractive to clients hungering for quality, objective research and analysis. As a result, hundreds of terminals are sold each year with the help of BI’s analysts and the information they provide.

Through the breadth of its coverage across industries, BI seamlessly adds value to several revenue-generating departments at Bloomberg.

“Besides Sales, we also work closely with News, providing journalists with data they may not have,” says Dave. “We work with Global Data to improve the breadth and quality of data. BI analysts also help improve products and functions, because they use the terminal the same way clients do.”

A day in the life of a Credit Research Analyst

Louise Parker is a London-based credit research analyst — and she absolutely loves her job. “I’m a bit of an educator,” she says. “I get great satisfaction in helping someone with a research issue, or not seeing a security from a certain angle. I love educating clients and surprising them with a fresh take.”

Louise has been with Bloomberg a little more than a year. She looks at companies from a fixed income point of view, diving deep into things like cash flow, debt, and leverage, and how that compares to a company’s peers. Doing so is another way to judge whether an issuer’s bonds look rich or cheap, but on fixed income issues, such as credit worthiness and peer comparisons.

“I look more broadly at a company,” Louise explains. “I look at the credit report next to an equity report, because we’re talking about different things. And I look up and down the credit spectrum to see how the factors affect the valuation of the company’s bonds, to see which bonds have more or less value relative to peers and the Bloomberg Bond Indices.”

On a typical day, Louise could be researching a new company, as well as monitoring news about the industries on which she’s focusing – Consumer and Retail. After all, BI analysts need to keep the company primers updated. “It may be summer vacation for a lot of people, but corporations don’t sit still,” she points out. At the same time she could be responding to requests from clients for more data around her research, or what she thinks about Such and Such company’s bond ratings.

“My job is varied – no two days are alike,” she reports. “I love the fact that this role is entrepreneurial. I choose what to research. Yes, I have deadlines and production targets, but it’s up to me to manage my time.”

Expanding fixed income research

BI started as an industry research department, but five years ago they gradually began to expand into other areas, such as fixed income, government policy, corporate litigation, and investment strategy. The majority of what BI currently does – and what they’re most known for — is typically viewed as equity research, but the credit and strategy work has grown in importance. Current credit coverage is largely U.S. focused, but soon that won’t be the case.

In a sign of BI’s growing influence and the pressing need for its unique, in-depth research, the team is increasing their portfolio of credit research to provide a broader global footprint.

“We are expanding because MiFID II creates opportunities for insightful research,” says Joel Levington, head of Fixed Income Research for BI. “Credit research from banks and other financial institutions is becoming less and less available because of rising costs. And in many cases, research isn’t being published at all!”

So, BI is aiming to fill a growing research gap. And they need talented researchers looking to make their mark.

Opportunities in BI

Ideal candidates for BI’s open research positions are seasoned professionals with outstanding communication skills. “We want you to be forward looking with your research,” Joel says. “And you must – MUST – love doing research and connecting with clients.”

If you think BI might be the next step in your career development journey, check out these opportunities.