Bloomberg Blog

A Record-Breaking Week

What a week. The S&P 500 had the biggest slump since November 2008. U.S. stocks tumbled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ Composite, and Russell 2000 - - all tumultuous.

This point in time is certainly disconcerting for people, especially business and financial professionals. Since Bloomberg has many lenses into the moving markets through our data, news, and analytic tools, we wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of what we are seeing.

The recent market turmoil broke historic highs for market data activity globally, according to Bloomberg’s Research & Development team. Bloomberg processed 43.7 billion ticks on August 10, 2011 (a tick is an upward or downward movement in a security's trades, bids, and offers prices; tick data provides all market activity, not only volume of shares traded, giving investors full market transparency to make more informed trading decisions). This is 46 percent higher than previous days, including peaks in volatility experienced during the Japanese earthquake, the flash crash, and the apex of the financial crisis.

 
Market tick volume reaches historic highs

Bloomberg.com had some of its biggest traffic days ever, with more than 60 percent increases over average daily unique visitors and page views. The live TV player on Bloomberg.com had nearly three times the amount of unique visitors than what we see on average per day. And, we were the first in reporting the announcement of S&P's downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating on the Bloomberg Professional service.   
 

 

Most read stories on Bloomberg.com:

-    U.S. Stocks Fall as S&P 500 Has Biggest Slump Since November 2008

-    S&P Seen Surrendering to Tea Party Costing U.S. Taxpayer

-    Stocks Tumble Most Since 2008 as Treasuries, Gold Surge on S&P Rating Cut

 

Most watched videos on Bloomberg.com:

-   Buffet says 'bet heavily' against double recession

-   Marc Faber says markets 'extremely oversold'

-  Jim Rogers on U.S. Rating downgrade, global markets

Whether you subscribe to the Bloomberg Professional service, watch our TV station, listen to our radio programs, or visit our web site, we'll continue to keep you informed on the issues that matter most during this concerning time.

 

The Bloomberg Team

Bloomberg Launches Community-Supported Agriculture Program for Its New York Employees

Bloomberg is taking an active role in supporting the health of its employees while also supporting local farmers.

Bloomberg recently teamed up with Mountainview Farm in Easthampton, Massachusetts to bring the first-ever Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program to the New York office. Participating employees receive a weekly share of fresh produce during the farming season, as well as exposure to new vegetables and ways to prepare them.

This mutually beneficial program not only supports the local economy, but also gives employees access to better quality produce that is grown without chemicals and pesticides.

Additionally, CSA's provide farmers with the advantage of getting paid early for their crop, not having to lose profits to a “middle man,” and the opportunity of getting to know their customers. Consumers have the benefit of knowing exactly where their food comes from, learning how their food is grown, and getting produce that is grown sustainably.

More information on Bloomberg's sustainability initiatives can be found here.

 

 

Angela Martin leads communications for Bloomberg Sustainability

Bloomberg Businessweek to Launch New Editions in Europe and Asia

Bloomberg Businessweek is launching two new editions--in Europe and in Asia--in early 2012 and raising its rate base from 900,000 to 980,000.

For those who don't know, a magazine's rate base is the average circulation that it guarantees its advertisers, so an increase in the rate base is an important indicator of consistent and strong growth.

The European and Asian editions of Bloomberg Businessweek will feature content from the global edition of the magazine combined with regional reporting from more than 800 Bloomberg reporters in Europe and 500 in Asia. This follows revitalized local-language editions in Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic, and a new Polish-language edition will launch later this year.

For more background on the news, here's the press release.

 

 

 

 

Heather Carpenter co- leads communications for Bloomberg Businessweek

Bloomberg View Launches New Blog "The Ticker"

 

 
 
 

Bloomberg View, the opinion section of Bloomberg News, is expanding its web presence with its own blog, "The Ticker."  

The Ticker will appear during the week and will feature commentary from Bloomberg View's editors and columnists. It will focus on -- but not be limited to -- economics, politics, finance and the markets.

View currently publishes three other blogs: Echoes, which looks at economic history, World View, which taps into the discussion taking place in India, China, Russia, Brazil and the Middle East, and Business Class, which features commentary from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

While the View will work to bring the world's discussion to Bloomberg, it will also work to bring Bloomberg to the world. The edited posts will frequently draw on the data, analytics, and reporting produced by the extended Bloomberg organization.

 

The initial group writing for the Ticker will include:

• George Anders, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on technology and economics. He lives in California and is the author of the upcoming book, The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else.

 

• Caroline Baum, Bloomberg View columnist, covering the bond market and other financial issues and is the author of "Just What I Said."

 

• Max Berley, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on European and American political economy.

 

• William D. Cohan, Bloomberg View columnist and the author of "Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World."

 

• Paula Dwyer, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on the political economy and regulation, and is the co-author of "Take on the Street."

 

• James Greiff, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on markets and finance.

 

• Tobin Harshaw, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, writing a daily e-mail, Share the View, highlighting the section's upcoming content. To subscribe, contact him at tharshaw2@bloomberg.com.

 

• Simon Johnson, Bloomberg View columnist, writing about economics, and previously was chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

 

• Michael Kinsley, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board. He previously was the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times and the editor of the New Republic, Harper's and Slate.

 

• Timothy Lavin, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on politics and policy.

 

• William Pesek, Bloomberg View columnist based in Tokyo, writing on Asian economic and political issues.

 

• Jonathan Weil, Bloomberg View columnist, covering the financial industry.

 

• Mark Whitehouse, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, focusing on global economics and finance.

 

• Francis Wilkinson, member of the Bloomberg View editorial board focusing on national, state and local politics in the U.S.

 

Ty Trippet leads communications for Bloomberg News and Media Group

Bloomberg Launches Cloud Archiving For Microsoft Office 365

Bloomberg's electronic communications compliance offering, Bloomberg Vault, has integrated with Microsoft Office 365. That means financial services firms using Microsoft Office 365 now have a cloud-based solution for meeting global electronic communications regulatory and risk management guidelines.

According to a study commissioned by Bloomberg Vault and Forrester Consulting in May 2011, financial institutions are taking more precautions when it comes to archiving emails. They are rapidly moving to hosted email compliance and storage services in order to deal with increasing costs, risks, and regulations.

And, it's not just financial institutions that worry about information management regulations and prudent records retention processes. Companies in all industries need to think about this as well. (The combined service from Bloomberg and Microsoft can also aid non- financial organizations.)

 

Here's the net-net on the benefits from Bloomberg Vault/Office 365:

- Integrated and secure archiving of all electronic communications as a hosted service, helping companies to reduce overhead costs by leveraging the cloud;

- Specialized features designed to help financial firms meet compliance requirements through real-time policy management, advanced search, eDiscovery and electronic records retention and preservation;

- Biometric security for compliance officers to enhance access controls.

 

Harald Collet is the global product manager for Bloomberg Vault

 

Bloomberg Testifies at Senate Hearing on Proposed Regulations for Derivatives Trading

Bloomberg testified before the U.S. Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment regarding regulations on over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives on June 29th.

As the largest independent trading platform for OTC derivatives, we provided perspectives on provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act, which requires companies to trade credit-default swaps (CDS) and other derivatives products through regulated exchanges called swap execution facilities -- or SEFs.  Given our unique position in the marketplace as a wholly independent player, the Senate Banking Committee asked us to comment on how SEFs should be regulated.

In short, we support the mandatory clearing and post-trading reporting requirements, but have concerns about the way the regulations will be promulgated, as poorly constructed rules have the potential to inhibit market trading flexibility and raise costs for the end user -- which would not fully achieve the important goals set out by the Dodd-Frank legislation.

As with all new regulations, the devil is in the details. As stated in our testimony before the Senate, sophisticated market participants do not really need or want federal regulators micromanaging execution protocols. 

Bloomberg intends to register as a SEF and we are actively engaged with regulators in the rule making process.  Our customer base is evenly distributed amongst buy side and the sell side participants, so we are an independent company not beholden to anyone, nor are we biased toward any particular element of the market.  As an empirically-driven and data-centered member of the financial services community, our goal is to bring transparency and efficiency to the marketplace -- including in the highly complex derivatives market.

To read the Bloomberg testimony, click here, or if you prefer to watch the full Senate hearing, you can do so here.

 

Ben Macdonald is Bloomberg's Global Head of Fixed Income

Dan Doctoroff Named CEO of Bloomberg LP

One of the hallmarks of Bloomberg's 30 year history is the continuity of our senior leadership.  We took another step this week in the evolution of the management of the firm by announcing that Dan Doctoroff will become Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg LP (effective August 1).  Dan has been President of the company (a title he will retain) for the past 4 years and has been instrumental in the recent growth of the firm and in building and managing our increasingly complex business model.  In adding the role of CEO, Dan will manage all day-to-day operations of the company.  He will still report to Peter Grauer - who has been our Chairman for the past 10 years and will continue to play an active role leading the company.

Bloomberg's success the past several decades has been primarily based on the extraordinary success of the Bloomberg Terminal, which provides financial information, analytics and news to financial professionals around the world.  And, of course, Bloomberg News has become a world leader in business and financial media and an essential contributor to the value of the Bloomberg Terminal.  We've also diversified to include new businesses, including Bloomberg Enterprise Products & Solutions, Bloomberg Data Solutions, Bloomberg Trading Solutions, Bloomberg Tradebook, Bloomberg Government, Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, among others.  The continued success of the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg News plus the addition of these new businesses led to a record financial performance for the company in 2010.  With this streamlined management structure, the company is well-positioned to continue to grow and prosper in the coming years.

And one other exciting announcement:  Tom Secunda, one of the original four founders of Bloomberg LP, was named Vice Chairman of the company.  Tom has been at the forefront of our success over the past 30 years and manages our Financial Products business and Research and Development team.

You can read the press release here.

 

Rick Powell is Bloomberg's Chief Communications Officer

Introducing Bloomberg Queue

Everybody is busy. Always on the go. There's a lot of news out there, including on Bloomberg.com, and people don't have time to read everything. That's a big part of what we think about when determining which features to roll out on our website. While we revealed a new home page about one month ago, we are already adding a hopefully quite useful new tool.

Today, you'll find the Bloomberg Queue on our homepage. (Special shout-out to our launch sponsor Dell. It's the first creative execution in the U.S. of their new broad scale corporate brand campaign - positioning the company as a full-service information technology solutions provider that puts customers front and center.) 

 

   

 
The way this new feature works is simple. You see a story you want to read, but you don't have time right then. Add it to your queue (using the + sign), and read it later. Or, if you've read a story and want to save it, you can do that too and "star" it, or search within your queue for it.

We'll also suggest stories you might find interesting based on what you've already added to your queue. (The more you add, the better we can do with our story recommendations.)

Right now, you can do all of this using a browser, either on your PC, Mac, tablet, or phone.  We are working on giving you the ability to use your queue across any connected device online or offline.  Stay tuned.

 

Eric Steinle is head of product and design for Bloomberg web properties

Bloomberg Law Expands its Web Platform

As the first post about Bloomberg Law, let me take one minute to describe what it is and how it helps lawyers. Bloomberg Law provides primary legal research resources, analytics, news, and company information in one reliable system. Essentially, it provides lawyers what they need to conduct extensive research, build arguments, validate cases, analyze court dockets and just about anything else they need to help their clients and grow their practices.

Today, we are revealing the latest evolution of Bloomberg Law - which was built from the ground up and addresses the integrated legal and business needs of a modern law practice.

Here's an interview we did introducing the new Bloomberg Law enhancements. For more details on features and functionality, see the press release.

Lou Andreozzi is chairman of Bloomberg Law and Larry D. Thompson, PhD, is chief operating officer of Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Wins Three Loeb Awards for Outstanding Business and Financial Journalism

Earlier this evening, at Capitale in New York City, Bloomberg accepted three Gerald Loeb Awards for outstanding business and financial journalism in the News Services, Beat Reporting, and Magazines categories. 

Winning a Loeb award is a big deal in the world of business journalism. It's a true honor that demonstrates a certain level of expertise to which most aspire.
 

Image from businessjournalism.org

Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler said, "As there is no greater measure of respect than to be honored by our peers, we are grateful to be recognized with seven Loeb finalists and three Loeb winners,  all of them advancing the public interest."

Here are the winners:

"Profiting From Fallen Soldiers"
by David Evans
(News Services category)

This series of stories, which appeared on Bloomberg News and in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, reveals how MetLife, Prudential and more than 130 life insurance companies have concocted a scheme to withhold -- and profit from -- $28 billion in death benefits owed to families of service members, government workers and millions of other Americans who had policies.  The stories resulted in almost immediate changes to U.S. government practices.

"Education Inc."
by Daniel Golden, John Hechinger and John Lauerman
(Beat Reporting category)

A series of Bloomberg News articles revealed that for-profit colleges have mushroomed into a $30-billion-a-year industry at taxpayer expense by targeting vulnerable populations -- disabled military and veterans, the homeless, immigrants and minorities -- with misleading promises of low costs, online academic help, and lucrative jobs after graduation.

"End of Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder Was It Worth It"
by Amanda Bennett and Charles R. Babcock
(Magazines category)

Amanda Bennett and Charles Babcock stepped into the middle of the health reform debate and spent more than eight months collecting the medical and insurance records associated with the 2007 cancer-caused death of Bennett's husband. The result was a story that turned a personal tragedy into the exploration of the conflict between the deeply human impulse to save a loved one at all cost, and the price to society of doing so.  This story ran in Bloomberg Businessweek and on Bloomberg News.

 

Ty Trippet runs communications for Bloomberg News and Media Group