Financial data is key driver of financial specialist. For equity analyst who basically needs historical financial performance and forecasts to build a financial model need to have an accurate data.
As of today, there are mainly four largest data providers:
- Bloomberg
- Refinitiv Eikon
- S&P Capital IQ
- FactSet
All the above are platforms that provide all types of financial data required by an equity analyst. All the platforms above come with a massive subscription price.
| Platform | Subscription fee | Market Share (%) |
| Bloomberg | USD 27,660/year | 33.4 |
| Refinitiv Eikon | USD 22,000/year | 19.6 |
| S&P Capital IQ | Tier based pricing model | 6.2 |
| FactSet | USD 12,000/year | 4.5 |
| Source: Burton-Taylor International Consulting 2020 |
Bloomberg
The Bloomberg Terminal brought more clarity to the universe of financial data. It connects financial market participants to analytics and data that has revolutionized industry. Bloomberg terminal remains the market leader of delivering news, trading tools and powerful data with cutting edge innovation it has more than 33% of market share. Bloomberg has more than 325,000 paid subscribers. Bloomberg closest rival is Refinitiv Eikon with 20% of market share.
Pricing
Bloomberg Terminal comes with a hefty price tag with USD 27,660/year but it can be leased on a two-year basis which makes a price drop to USD 24,240 per terminal.
Mostly use for…
Bloomberg terminal is used for many financial services but mostly used by Asset management companies, trading, buy-side, and sell-side analysts.
The best place for latest news
You can search for any kind of news on terminal. This function brings top stories of the day and are updated on real time. You can also filter each one of them by geographic region, asset class or any topic.
Easy market monitoring…
Bloomberg offers a variety of market monitoring pages. These pages cover many asset classes. You can easily access treasury bond market and updates from stock markets and commodities.
You must go for it if….
The data sets that Bloomberg offers are way more comprehensive and updated quickly and efficiently than any of its competitors. Making this data very crucial for research analysts, bond market traders and fixed income sales. It also provides useful data for debt capital markets.
One of the most useful feature Bloomberg offers is instant messaging service. It allows other Bloomberg users to IM with others on terminal. IM feature is very exciting for traders at trading desks, you can easily post quotes directly to another trader via Bloomberg IM. If your firm has license to at least one terminal, other employees can benefit from it by just $10/month for IM services only.
You probably don’t need Bloomberg if…
Investment bankers are not much fond with Bloomberg terminal as buy-side and sell-side professionals. i.e Merger and acquisition professionals might have Bloomberg Terminal and each banker don’t have their own terminals.
Capital IQ
Founded in 1998 and MCGraw acquired it in 2004 worth USD 200 million. It’s a research arm of S&P Global, the provider of ratings, data, research, and S&P Dow Jones indices. The S&P Capital IQ is widely used for equity research, investment banking, asset management etc. Every year Capital IQ analyzes and collects more than 135 billion data sets to serve its customers and to be a leading platform of financial services. The USP behind Capital IQ is that it’s web-based portal and it can be accessed from anywhere in the world from any machine unlike its peers. The web portal for Capital IQ’s products offers many powerful tools for institutional and individual investors alike. These tools give users the ability to gain broad market understanding through the use of its various features, including market snapshots, industry and sub-industry reviews, surveys, and general economic insights. The data in Capital IQ is much cleaner and is organized better than Bloomberg. This is just how the systems were designed. Bloomberg was designed for real-time market data and it excels at that.
Pricing
Capital IQ pricing starts at $13,000 per user per year with a minimum of 3 users and drops to as low as $7,500 per user per year for larger numbers of users. However, pricing can go up significantly with additional features. For example, the ability to download equity research reports comes at an extra cost — either on a per-download basis or unlimited at $2,500 per year.
Mostly used for…
If you are the person looking for data scrubbing, searching through company profiles than Capital IQ is for you.
Data scrubbing: When the company announces its earnings. The GAAP numbers are not the ones analysts care for. Instead, they look for non-GAAP numbers which is time consuming and not always correct. Capital IQ will do data scrubbing for you and make it easier for you to get non-GAAP data. Due to this Capital IQ has gained popularity among investment bankers.
Excel Plugin: Excel plugins enable investment analysts to pull data directly on Microsoft Excel. This feature is not robust like its peers (Bloomberg, FactSets) but it helps in enhancing productivity.
Click-through data source: one of the features that Capital IQ offers is you can click on arrived data to audit whether numbers are entered correctly from source documents/financials.
Powerpoint plugin: Capital IQ has a PowerPoint plugin that enables you to create charts, graphs, and tables that automatically update without having to copy and paste each time you need to refresh or change information. This can be a huge time saver for financial analysts who often spend a great deal of time moving back and forth.
You must go for it if….
You are not at the workplace and need to access some financial data. You can easily access Capital IQ through web portal. Unlike its peers’ competitors, Bloomberg requires specific machine dedicated for terminal. Software installation for FactSet on machine. Major products of the Capital IQ platform include Compustat, Xpressfeed, and Money Market Directories (MMD). With all these powerful tools users get access to quantitative analysis, portfolio management, financial modeling, screening, and research.
Another thing that Capital IQ does well is tracking corporate actions and giving an unbroken series of data with the metadata to help sort it out.
Under most corporate actions, Bloomberg data breaks the series, and you have to look up the series under a different identifier and do the work yourself using the CACS function to figure out which series you need to stitch together. It’s a huge pain. By contrast, Capital IQ uses a unique Company ID and Trading Item ID and they track the corporate actions so that when you retrieve data for a particular ID it’s given back as a series that is unbroken
You probably don’t need Capital IQ if…
Sell-side analysts and Buy-side analysts mostly look for real time data. Capital IQ lags here in terms of real time data capability as compared to its competitors.
Refinitiv Eikon
Refinitiv Eikon is a solution provider for financial markets and provide access to leading data in industry. Eikon has trusted contacts in more than 30,000 companies across the globe. Plus it is an open technology platform providing flexibility that how data is used.
Pricing
Eikon subscription is prices at USD 22,000/year, it directly competes with Bloomberg terminal.
Mostly used for…
Refinitiv Eikon is generally known for something cheaper than Bloomberg. It has almost same financial data as Bloomberg has but may be lesser options if we see depth of data.
You must go for it if….
You must go for it if you are looking for a striped-down version of Bloomberg. As Eikon is cheaper option to Bloomberg with similar features.
FactSet
Factset is a software based financial data service and analysis provider for financials professionals, hedge funds managers, and investment bankers. It provides data on private and public companies, along with fixed income portfolios and equity data. FactSet has more than 100,000 subscribers in around 5,000 firms.
Pricing
The FactSet subscription comes at USD 12,000/year for product licensed. FactSet provides its services for a lower price than some of its competitors because the company uses multiple sources to provide its data, which creates pricing competition between suppliers.
You must go for it if….
If you are into making pitch for stocks. FactSet gives users more freedom if they are into financial modeling. It will increase efficiency via custom shortcuts and helpful formatting that Capital IQ don’t have yet.
FactSet also offers a PowerPoint plugin that enables users to automate the pitch for presentation. You can also navigate easily on FactSet as compared to its peers. FactSet also has a user-friendly interface.
You probably don’t need FactSet if…
If you are into equity research, FactSet does not offer a wide range for equity research. FactSet won’t be the right choice if you are looking for all in one place. Also, FactSet requires software installation on the system on each computer that needs to access it. And only one subscription is allowed on two computers.
