Trade secret

Bloomberg Data Services, accessible through terminals in the Rike Hall Soin Trading Center, makes available financial news, corporate financial statements, stock price movements and trends, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other important financial data.

Students in the Wright State University Raj Soin College of Business have a special tool that enables them to quickly access detailed financial information, impress employers and get a head start on their careers – Bloomberg Data Services.

The service, accessible through terminals in the college’s Soin Trading Center, makes available financial news, corporate financial statements, stock price movements and trends, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other important financial data.

“It gives them at their fingertips any information they need for understanding the value of any sort of financial asset,” said Marlena Akhbari, associate professor and chair of the Department of Finance and Financial Services. “It expands their ability to have and process information and to analyze it.”

Bloomberg Data Services is known for delivering high-quality data with great speed and accuracy that is verified, organized, integrated and updated as the markets, financial instruments and entities evolve. As news arrives any time of day or night, it is integrated into the data set and swiftly associated with assets whose pricing may have been impacted by it. The data is comprehensive, dynamic and the gold standard for a myriad of roles in the financial services industry.

The service enables students to handle assignments in upper-level finance classes and is also used by students majoring in management and other majors. Students also use Bloomberg to assist with their research in managing more than $1.7 million for the university as part of the Real Money Investing class.

In addition, finance and financial services students are required to become certified by Bloomberg University in the use of Bloomberg data in foreign exchange, fixed-income securities and other areas.

“It absolutely gives you a leg up in your career,” said Akhbari. “Students have had some real training on how to access and use this data. It definitely impresses employers. They are impressed that our students are being trained with the right tools.”

The Raj Soin College of Business began subscribing to Bloomberg Data Services when the Soin Trading Center opened in 2005. It initially began with one terminal, but in 2012 was expanded to 12.

The presence of Bloomberg Data Services is an integral part and function of the trading center, which was named one of the 10 best trading centers in America by Bloomberg’s Newsweek and won the Classroom of the Year in 2006 from American School and University, a type of architectural digest for schools.

Marlena Akhbari, chair of the Department of Finance and Financial Services, says employers are impressed that Wright State business students are trained on Bloomberg Data Services.

Students who have used Bloomberg Data Services say it has played a big part in their professional success.

Joseph White graduated from Wright State magna cum laude in 2017 with degrees in accountancy and finance. He earned his masters of accountancy in 2018 and works as an assistant portfolio manager at Johnson Investment Counsel.

“The vast amount of real-time, dynamic financial data available on the (Bloomberg) software played a foundational role in the lesson plans and projects in many courses I took, including the most critical courses that led me to the opportunities I have today, such as Real Money Investing and Fixed Income Securities,” said White. “Learning how to navigate and utilize this software allows Wright State finance students to compete with job candidates from other universities.”

Sonal Supriya, who earned her MBA from Wright State in 2017, worked as an institutional operations associate at Johnson Investment Counsel and is now a financial analyst with Speedway, LLC.

“Bloomberg training at WSU played a vital role in easing my transition from the theoretical college world finance to practical real-world finance,” said Supriya. “Within a few months at my job, I was training senior colleagues on how to use the terminal for extracting security pricing data, corporate actions information, principal and interest payments for mortgage bonds.”

Wright State finance graduate Allen Thuma, portfolio manager and research analyst at Buckingham Capital Management, said Bloomberg Data Services is one of the best tools to find financial data and investment opportunities.

“Becoming more familiar with this tool helped me not to just use it once I started working, but it also helped me to learn what sorts of things I would want to look for when analyzing a stock,” he said.

Dominic Giannuzzi, a senior financial services major and president of the Dean’s Student Advisory Board, said the service has helped broaden his financial research capabilities and enhanced his critical-thinking skills, both of which will serve him well as a financial adviser.

The Department of Finance and Financial Services is working on plans to launch the Investments Academy, which would enable students to learn more about investment decision-making through study trips to New York and Chicago, presentations to members of the Finance Club and meetings with outside investment advisers.

“The Finance and Financial Services Department is a pioneer in the field for experiential learning; the Practicum in Financial Planning class requires students to play the role of financial planners for an actual client,” said Akhbari. ”The Miami Valley is full of certified professional planners (CFPS) whose first experience as a financial planner was a student in this class. Students from the Real Money Investing Class have gone on to acquire the chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation and become portfolio managers. We believe the Investments Academy will create even more cohesion and excitement for the curriculum and the Real Money Investing class, which manages the portfolio of $1.7 million for Wright State,” said Akhbari.