A Brief History of the Bloomberg Terminal

彭博终端简史

Financial markets have always relied on timely information, and the drive for timeliness has always adapted to the latest technology. From clipper ships transiting the oceans to telegraph wires connecting cities to fiber-optic cables conducting trades in microseconds, traders have embraced any advantage to get the most up-to-date information. Indeed, the history of finance is really a story about how fast you can move information and who controls the interface.

金融市场向来依赖及时信息，而对时效性的追求也总是随着最新技术不断演进。从横跨大洋的飞剪式帆船，到连接城市的电报线路，再到以微秒级速度进行交易的光纤电缆，交易员们总是乐于利用任何优势来获取最新资讯。事实上，金融史本质上就是一部关于信息传递速度以及谁掌握了交互界面的历史。

It’s only natural that people also figured out a way to profit by supplying that market intel. In 1841, for example, the Mercantile Exchange (predecessor to Dun & Bradstreet) began selling proprietary business information to its U.S. clients. The following decade, Paul Julius Reuter began selling news services and stock price information. To supplement the company’s telegraph dispatches, he sent pigeons between Aachen, Germany, and Brussels; each bird carried a cylinder containing slips of paper with that day’s stock prices. In 1867, an inventor named Edward Calahan introduced the first telegraphic ticker-tape machine, which spooled out stock price information in near real time; Thomas Edison improved upon the design with his patented version in 1871.

人们自然也找到了通过提供这些市场情报来获利的方法。例如，1841年，商业交易所（邓白氏公司的前身）开始向其美国客户出售专有的商业信息。十年后，保罗·朱利叶斯·路透（Paul Julius Reuter）开始销售新闻服务和股票价格信息。为了补充公司的电报快讯，他在德国亚琛和布鲁塞尔之间使用信鸽传递信息；每只鸽子都携带一个圆筒，里面装着写有当天股价的纸条。1867年，发明家爱德华·卡拉汉（Edward Calahan）推出了第一台电报行情收报机，能够近乎实时地打印出股价信息；托马斯·爱迪生在1871年对其设计进行了改进并申请了专利。

The Dow Jones Industrial Average debuted in 1896 as an index of 12 key businesses listed on U.S. stock exchanges. It included gas, oil, coal, and electric companies, as well as enterprises dealing in leather, rubber, and tobacco. Messengers delivered quotes from the trading floor to brokerage offices, while stock tickers kept investors informed of prices. By the time New York City held its first official ticker-tape parade, in 1919, telegraphy in Western Europe and the United States had become the chief means for quick transmission of vital stock information.

道琼斯工业平均指数于1896年首次亮相，作为美国证券交易所上市的12家关键企业的指数。它涵盖了天然气、石油、煤炭和电力公司，以及经营皮革、橡胶和烟草的企业。当时，信使负责将报价从交易大厅送到经纪公司办公室，而行情收报机则让投资者随时了解价格。到1919年纽约市举行第一次正式的“纸带游行”时，电报已成为西欧和美国快速传输重要股票信息的主要手段。

In 1960, the first paperless financial service debuted, when Quotron introduced its electronic screens for displaying market quotes. Over the next two decades, other companies rolled out similar innovations for distributing financial news and data. So when Michael Bloomberg decided to enter this well-established industry in 1981, the big question was: How would his new company stand out?

1960年，首个无纸化金融服务问世，Quotron推出了用于显示市场报价的电子屏幕。在接下来的二十年里，其他公司也推出了类似的创新产品来分发金融新闻和数据。因此，当迈克尔·彭博（Michael Bloomberg）在1981年决定进入这个成熟的行业时，最大的问题是：他的新公司将如何脱颖而出？

The Birth of the Bloomberg Terminal

彭博终端的诞生

Bloomberg had cofounded Innovative Market Systems (IMS) after being fired from the investment bank Salomon Brothers. Landing on his feet with his US $10 million equity payout and joined by former Salomon colleagues Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, and Charles Zegar, Bloomberg pursued his belief that Wall Street would pay a premium for specialized financial data. He’d earned an electrical engineering degree from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Harvard, and he’d built computerized financial systems for Salomon. IMS focused on developing a computer terminal that not only provided up-to-date information but could also do instant quantitative analysis based on historical data.

在被所罗门兄弟投资银行解雇后，彭博联合创办了创新市场系统公司（IMS）。凭借1000万美元的股权结算金，并在前所罗门同事托马斯·塞昆达（Thomas Secunda）、邓肯·麦克米伦（Duncan MacMillan）和查尔斯·泽加（Charles Zegar）的加入下，彭博坚信华尔街愿意为专业的金融数据支付溢价。他拥有约翰霍普金斯大学的电气工程学位和哈佛大学的MBA学位，并曾为所罗门兄弟构建过计算机化金融系统。IMS专注于开发一种计算机终端，不仅能提供最新信息，还能基于历史数据进行即时的定量分析。

At the time, most financial data still circulated through telephone calls, printed price sheets, and specialist publications, and analysis involved a fair amount of gut instinct guided by human expertise. Companies such as Reuters and Dow Jones provided subscription-based services for access to business news. But traders still had to assemble information from multiple sources and perform their own calculations and analysis.

当时，大多数金融数据仍通过电话、印刷价格表和专业出版物进行流通，而分析工作很大程度上依赖于人类专家的直觉。路透社和道琼斯等公司提供基于订阅的商业新闻服务，但交易员仍需从多个来源收集信息，并自行进行计算和分析。

IMS proposed an integrated system with a single interface. Its Market Master terminal consisted of a monochrome CRT monitor, a custom keyboard, and a communications/controller unit that connected to the company’s private network. At launch, it provided only U.S. government bond prices and bond-calculation tools, but the dream was much bigger: a dedicated terminal that would sit on a trader’s desk and run different market scenarios, produce yield curves, and support investment calculations.

IMS提出了一种具有单一界面的集成系统。其“市场大师”（Market Master）终端由单色CRT显示器、定制键盘以及连接到公司私有网络的通信/控制器单元组成。在发布之初，它仅提供美国政府债券价格和债券计算工具，但其愿景远不止于此：打造一台放置在交易员桌面上，能够运行不同市场情景、生成收益率曲线并支持投资计算的专用终端。

IMS initially had just one client, Merrill Lynch, which invested $30 million (about $110 million today) in exchange for a 30 percent stake in the company and exclusive rights to the terminals for five years; Merrill waived that right in 1984. The first 22 Market Master terminals were delivered to Merrill in 1982, in the middle of a global recession. The timing was fortuitous. Worldwide, stock markets were transitioning to electronic trading, and the U.S. Federal Reserve was allowing more freely floating interest rates. Bond prices were more volatile, and investors were eager to figure out how to value them accurately. Bloomberg’s specialized financial terminals provided the data and the analytical tools to process and comprehend those sweeping changes.

IMS最初只有一个客户——美林证券。美林投资了3000万美元（约合今天的1.1亿美元），换取了公司30%的股份以及终端五年的独家使用权；美林在1984年放弃了这一权利。1982年，在全球经济衰退期间，首批22台“市场大师”终端交付给了美林。时机非常凑巧：全球股市正在向电子交易转型，美联储也允许利率更加自由地浮动。债券价格波动加剧，投资者急于找到准确评估其价值的方法。彭博的专业金融终端提供了处理和理解这些剧烈变化所需的数据和分析工具。

Five years after its launch, IMS rebranded as Bloomberg LP and expanded its clientele, and the Market Master became known as the Bloomberg Terminal.

在推出五年后，IMS更名为彭博有限合伙企业（Bloomberg LP）并扩大了客户群，“市场大师”也正式更名为“彭博终端”。

How Did the Bloomberg Terminal Work?

彭博终端是如何运作的？

The Bloomberg Terminal’s keyboard was designed with traders and analysts in mind. The function keys were color-coded and given labels specifying their usage, so that users didn’t have to remember. The original keyboard, affectionately referred to as “the Chiclet,” was hand assembled. A cable ran from the keyboard to the Bloomberg Controller, which had a dedicated phone line to connect to a local hub. The internet wasn’t commercially available yet, so the company basically built its own closed network, with centralized computers that maintained large databases.

彭博终端的键盘设计充分考虑了交易员和分析师的需求。功能键采用颜色编码并贴有明确用途的标签，用户无需死记硬背。最初的键盘被亲切地称为“Chiclet”（口香糖键盘），是手工组装的。一根电缆从键盘连接到彭博控制器，控制器通过专线连接到本地集线器。当时互联网尚未商业化，因此该公司实际上构建了自己的封闭网络，并由中央计算机维护大型数据库。