Introduction

With the Macrobond Bloomberg Connector you can retrieve historical time series from Bloomberg if Bloomberg Terminal is installed and running on your computer.

The application determines the start date and frequency automatically. The highest supported frequency is daily data, and the earliest start date is 1930-01-01.

Requirements

Please note that the product Bloomberg Anywhere, which is a lightweight version of Bloomberg Terminal, does not come with the API needed by the Macrobond Bloomberg Connector. You need to run the installed version of Bloomberg Terminal for the connector to work.

Enabling the Bloomberg Connector

To be able to use the Bloomberg connector, it must be enabled in the Macrobond application. This is done on the Configuration (in upper menu) > Settings > tab 'My series' (for MB pre-1.28: Edit > Settings > tab 'My series'):

Working with Bloomberg Connector

Series names

Series names for the Bloomberg connector, in their simplest form, are specified as "ih:bl:symbol". Note, if the BBG symbol has ' : ' in it (i.e., CL 1 N:00_0_N_Comdty) should be written as"ih:bl:c 5 a::00_0_N Comdty:PX_LAST", with two colons inside symbol.

The symbol is a Bloomberg symbol. The default format for Bloomberg symbols is the Bloomberg ticker followed by the 'yellow key'. An example of a Bloomberg symbol is IBM US Equity and the series name to enter in Macrobond would then be "ih:bl:IBM US Equity". When you use this as a series name in the Series List you need to specify the quotes around the name since it contains spaces.

A name without a specific field specified will refer to the field PX_LAST. The full format of the name is "ih:bl:symbol:field:override1=value1:override2=value2", where the field and the list of overrides are optional.

Here is an example the uses another field than PX_LAST: "ih:bl:IBM US Equity:BEST_EPS".

You may optionally append one or more 'overrides' to the name. For example: "ih:bl:nky Index:BEST_PE_RATIO:eqy_consolidated=N".

Bloomberg have some variations on their symbol codes. For instance, you can include the pricing source as in "ih:bl:MSFT@ETPX US Equity".

You may also use other symbol schemas than the Bloomberg ticker format. For example: "ih:bl:/cusip/912828GM6@BGN".

Please consult the Bloomberg documentation for further information on the symbol format, field names and overrides.

Entering Bloomberg symbols in the Series browser

To make it easier to enter Bloomberg symbols and to use such series together with the Action command bar, you can select Bloomberg in the Series browser. This allows you to type in the Bloomberg symbols and look them up.

You may include the 'yellow key' ('Equity', 'Index' etc.) at the end of the symbol. If it is not included, the Macrobond application will try all the keys and present all series found.

If you want some other field than PX_LAST, you may include it like in this example:

IBM US:BEST_EPS

You can also find below a non-exhaustive list of Bloomberg field codes:

Ask Price	PX_ASK
Bid Price	PX_BID
High Price	PX_HIGH
Last trade/Last price	LAST_PRICE
Low Price	PX_LOW
Mid Price	PX_MID
Open Price	PX_OPEN
Option Price	OPT_PX
Settlement Price	PX_SETTLE
Strike Price	STRIKE_PX
Best EV/EBITDA	TO_EBITDA
Best P/E Ratio	PE_RATIO
Closing Price 1 Day Ago	CLOSE_1D
Contract value	CONTRACT_VALUE
Current Enterprise Value	ENTP_VAL
Enterprise Value	ENTERPRISE_VALUE
Enterprise Value (EV) to Book Value	BOOK_VALUE
Estimated P/E Nest Year Aggregate	YR_AGGTE
Net Asset Value (NAV)	ASSET_VAL
Price to Book Ratio	BOOK_RATIO
P/E ratio	PE_RATIO
Total market Value TOT_MKT_VAL	MKT_VAL
Volume	VOLUME
Volatility 30 day	VOLATILITY_30D
VWAP (Vol Weighted Average Price)	AVG_PX
Yesterday Close Price	YEST_CLOSE

Using Bloomberg 'overrides'

Bloomberg has a system for specifying additional parameters in historical data requests that can affect the series returned. An override can look like this: Eqy_Consolidated=N.

As explained above you can specify such overrides when writing the series names in Macrobond. These the same overrides as you can specify in the Bloomberg BDH Excel function. In the BDH function there are, however, some parameters that look like 'overrides', but they are technically not. Some of these are also supported in the Macrobond application:

`QtTyp`	Price/Yield quote. Valid values are “P” (price) and “Y” (yield). The default is “Y”.
`Quote`	Quote calculation. Valid values are “A” (average) and “C” (close). The default is “C”.
`CshAdjNormal`	Cash Adjustment Normal. Valid values are “Y” (yes) and “N” (no). The default is “N”.
`CshAdjAbnormal`	Cash Adjustment Abnormal. Valid values are “Y” (yes) and “N” (no). The default is “N”.
`CapChg`	Capital Changes. Valid values are “Y” (yes) and “N” (no). The default is “N”.
`Curr`	Currency conversion. Valid values are ISO codes such as “USD” and “GBP”.

For further details, please see the Bloomberg documentation.

Bloomberg Connector Enhancement

In the Bloomberg series provider, visible below, you can paste Bloomberg Excel BDH expressions, and the application will suggest a time series.

For example, you can use:

=BDH("goog us equity","EBIT","1/1/2005","12/31/2009","per=cy")

Note that it won't work for =BDP or =BDS.

Troubleshooting

If you get an error like 'Unknown series prefix' when trying to specify a Bloomberg series in the Series List, please verify that the Bloomberg connector has been enabled in Macrobond as described in the section 'Enabling the Bloomberg connector' above.

For other errors, the best approach is to try loading the same series by using the Bloomberg Excel add-in by using the BDH function. If you cannot load the series using the BDH function, please contact Bloomberg support.