yes... bba.bloomberg.net but u'll need to pay the subscription to get access - i pay $2K/mth including the hardware, could be cheaper per person if other people on my floor decided to subscribe as well for themselves ($1.5K per terminal if more than 1 subscription)... otherwise you can always look up some of the news on bloomberg.com/tv but thats a different story...
As far as Bloomberg hardware goes, I like this: http://about.bloomberg.com/about/hardware/bunit.html (Until I left the buy side in 2001, I had access to a Bloomberg terminal, and I loved it. But, with the costs so high, I did not think that the expense was justified for an independent trader. Bloomberg makes a lot of sense for an institution. TradeStation charts are as good as BB used to be, but you can probably find even better charting packages now. Never knew about the B-Unit above, until looking at the site this morning.)
When I hear the news on Bloomberg TV or Bloomberg radio the price has already jumped. So there must be somebody who get the news before I do. Do you get the news faster when you have direct access to Bloomberg?
If you are looking for news, BBG, MarketNews and Reuters are a must. BBG is fantastic and worth every penny, I can count the number of times it has gone down in the last 5-years on one hand. Expensive, yes.
I haven't seen the Bridgestation with Reuters news but it isn't very likely at all that it will compare with BB or a professional Reuters platform. Market News International is timely but has less stories (several hundred USDs per month). Need To Know News is an audio newswire that only functions during US hours ($150 per month). Most of the headlines broadcast are a headline that just came out on another newswire. However, for US economic releases, they have a Washington correspondent that broadcasts live when the news embargo ends. Both of the last 2 I mentioned have free trials. Call NTKN to set up a trial; don't download the player from the website. They have a new player that uses VoIP technology which clear and fast. Cheers, TRADERguy
For example, Reuters broke the silver ETF story first this week. You could have bought all the silver you wanted. BBG broke the lead paint story a couple of weeks ago, you could have sold all the Sherwin Williams you wanted. MktNews runs ECB source stories that move markets regularly. The machine will pay for itself.
ECB = European Central Bank BB or bbg or Bloomie = Bloomberg mktnews = Market News International http://mni.acquiremedia.com/mni-bin/mni.cgi?page=0