You’ve lost your job in banking. You’ve lost your access to Bloomberg. You’re suffering from near-terminal Bloomberg terminal deprivation and you really have no idea what’s going on in the world beyond what you can find on Google News. It’s like living in a box.
Fortunately, there is Twitter.
Last time we wrote about the trauma of having your Bloomberg access cut after having your job cut, an ex-trader complained that Twitter was ‘full of rubbish’ and by no means a simulacrum of Bloomberg. However, that’s not true. Those that know point out that this trader simply didn’t know how to use Twitter properly.
If you want to make Twitter work like Bloomberg, you’ll need to….
Make a Twitter list for finance
“For news flow, I have two private Twitter lists,” says Banker’s Umbrella, the ex-private banker-turned blogger and voracious Twitter-er.
“The first list is full of Twitter finance influencers. It has about 100 names who are active on Twitter and are in the finance field. – Journalists, publications, good bloggers. I use it for news flow – one glance at that gives me an idea of the news,” he reveals. “The second list is full of finance professionals I interact with – I can turn to them any time I need more info or data.”
In this way, using Twitter’s list functionality, Banker’s Umbrella says you can make Twitter, ‘nearly as good as Bloomberg’, albeit without the ability to pull up specific data.
Twitter is the thing, agrees @pipbandit, a Swiss-based futures trader who frequents the medium. However, it’s not the only thing. “I use both Twitter and Bloomberg,” he discloses.
Related articles:
Bloomberg terminal deprivation: How to handle it
How jobless bankers should describe themselves on social media