The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Journalists [14 ed.] 1119272319, 9781119272311

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The Bloomberg Way

Since 1996, Bloomberg Press has published books for financial professionals, as well as books of general interest in investing, economics, current affairs, and policy affecting investors and business people. Titles are written by well-known practitioners, Bloomberg reporters and columnists, and other leading authorities and journalists. Bloomberg Press books have been translated into more than 20 languages. For a list of available titles, please visit our website at www.wiley .com/go/bloombergpress.

The Bloomberg Way

A Guide for Journalists

John Micklethwait Paul Addison Jennifer Sondag Bill Grueskin

Cover image and design: Bloomberg Studio Copyright © 2017 by Bloomberg LP. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. The Bloomberg Way was previously published in eleven editions by Bloomberg for its employees. Subsequent editions, including the fourteenth edition, were published by Wiley. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 7622974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993, or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://­ booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. ISBN 978-1-119-27231-1 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-119-27232-8 (ePDF) ISBN 978-1-119-27233-5 (ePub) Printed in the United States of America. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Introduction ix Chapter 1: What We Do

1

The Bloomberg Way  Bloomberg Editorial & Research Collaboration in Action

Chapter 2 How We Report

2 4 9

15

Learning a Beat 15 Sourcing 21 Interviewing 26 Breaking News 30 The Multiplatform Approach 33 Beyond Breaking News 37 Pitching Your Story 42 Research Using the Terminal 44

Chapter 3 How We Write

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Headlines 50

v

vi

Contents

Leads & Nut Paragraphs The Whole Story Writing Well Corrections & Lapses Sending Corrections Social Media

Chapter 4 How We Use Data

60 69 74 80 83 83

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Charting 92 Commonly Used Terms 95 Common Errors  100 Automation 101 Technical Analysis 103

Chapter 5 Ethics & Standards

107

Accuracy & Fairness 108 Defamation 110 Privacy 113 Access 114 Plagiarism 115 Conflicts of Interest 116 Conduct 120 Endorsements & Paying Our Way 122 Events & Interviews 123 Contests 124

Chapter 6 How We Cover Markets

127

What’s Moving (& Why) 128 Traders & Investors 131 Markets Style 133 Equities 135 Debt 138 Currencies 143 Commodities 147

Chapter 7 How We Cover Companies

153

Earnings 154 Deals 160 Corporate Debt 166 Finding News 170

Contents

Context & Valuation Corporate Equity

vii

173 177

Chapter 8 How We Cover Economies & Governments 183 Economies 184 Governments 192

Acknowledgments 197 Appendix 199 Words & Terms

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Index 323

Introduction Every army of journalists needs its marching orders and rules of engagement. Ever since its founding in 1990, Bloomberg News has followed The Bloomberg Way. Written by Matt Winkler, our founder and editor-in-chief until 2015, it has been one of the most successful journalistic bibles of modern time. The Bloomberg Way has played a huge role in turning a tiny upstart, which began with just a dozen reporters crammed into two offices in New York and London, into the leading provider of financial and business news around the globe. Its first version, a guide to reporting and editing the story of money in all its forms, was a 30-page manifesto, inspired by The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White; its last edition was almost 10 times that length, encompassing far more than just financial markets and making it a resource for the world’s leading journalism schools. Looking back, Matt’s starting point was a simple one: Bloomberg would follow standards that were at least as strict as its more established rivals—and often far stricter. This partly reflected the reality of competition. Bloomberg’s journalism is aimed at possibly the most sophisticated audience in the world, for whom accuracy is essential: Billions of

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Introduction

dollars can move within seconds of a story being published. From the beginning, Matt made sure that there would never be an opportunity for any of our competitors to claim that we cut corners. Bloomberg News might have started as a guerilla army, but the Bloomberg Way meant that it was a highly trained and disciplined army, one that relied on facts, numbers and credible sources to break news. The Bloomberg Way was always about more than just beating the competition. Its tough standards, and especially its ethical credo, also reflected the values of its author as well as those of the man who employed him. Ever since it first appeared in the then-opaque bond market in 1982, the Bloomberg Terminal has been a force for transparency: It gives customers the data they need to make decisions. When Mike Bloomberg rang the self-described “happiest reporter at the Wall Street Journal” on the second Wednesday in November 1989 to ask what it would take to get into the news business, Matt replied with a question of his own. “All right,” I said. “You have just published a story that says the chairman—and I mean chairman—of your biggest customer has taken $5 million from the corporate till. He is with his secretary at a Rio de Janeiro resort, and the secretary’s spurned boyfriend calls to tip you off. You get an independent verification that the story is true. Then the phone rings. The customer’s public relations person says, ‘Kill the story or we will return all the terminals we rent from you.’ What would you do?” “Go with the story,” Mike said. “Our lawyers will love the fees you generate.” It is not unusual for journalists to write about their customers, especially advertisers. But Bloomberg occupies a unique role in finance: We are in a way both its parish newsletter and its journal of record. By putting transparency and independence at the heart of Bloomberg’s journalism from the very beginning, Matt and Mike established something that could last. We will make mistakes—all journalists do—but they will not be ones that spring from bias or commercial interest. Indeed, our only interest is maintaining the value of what we do for the community that we serve—and that comes from telling the story as honestly as we can. Capitalism needs its chronicle—that is our job.

Introduction

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Given the success of the Bloomberg Way over the past quarter century, why have we decided to update it? Well, in one way, it is not changing at all. The basic principles are the same: Indeed, the very start of this book’s first chapter sets out Matt’s vision of the Bloomberg Way. It remains our credo, especially when it comes to questions of transparency and independence. The main aim of this edition is to apply those principles across all the platforms where Bloomberg journalism appears—and in many cases to tighten them. When an anchor on Bloomberg TV discusses the profitability of a company, we want him or her to highlight the same numbers as the reporter who covers the company. Bloomberg Businessweek has used shortened versions of company names; now it will use the same full names as the rest of the group. We are one newsroom. Henceforth, there will be one Bloomberg Way for names, numbers and standards. Those examples also hint at the first reason for updating the Way. Bloomberg has changed. The scrappy upstart is now the market leader in business and financial journalism: We can afford to be more self-confident. We have also become far broader. The old Bloomberg Way targeted the written news story on the terminal, the core of the original Bloomberg News. Now (as Chapter 1, What We Do, lays out) Bloomberg Editorial & Research is spread out across many different platforms: the terminal, the internet, magazines, television, radio and events. It also uses multiple formats. A “story” can be as short as a First Word item or as long as a 35,000-word essay on computer coding. A successful digital video demands a different vernacular from a headline or a tweet. So this guide tries to say how we present journalism on different platforms—as well as where we need to be the same. The fourparagraph lead—Matt’s way of presenting the reader with a compelling who, what, when, where, why and how—is still a very effective way to begin a 600-word news story, but a magazine piece that is five times that length needs to entice a reader more subtly. This edition lays down some rules but also makes clear where they can be broken. Its guiding principle is the audience: What is the clearest, quickest way to communicate the story in the most convenient

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format? Our readers and viewers tend to be intelligent people who have more money than time. A second prompt for change is technology. Journalism is an evolving craft. At one time a news story had to be the whole story, with a lot of background explanation, because it had to treat all readers the same. The story needed to include a lot of boilerplate information, because even if the head of Pimco knew exactly how a U.S. Treasury auction worked, Aunt Agatha might not. But now we live in a world of clickable links and background explainers, like QuickTakes. The head of Pimco doesn’t have to be slowed down, but Aunt Agatha can click through to find out exactly what a repo is. Another technological prompt is automation as computers can help deliver information very quickly and increasingly spot links before human brains do. Again, this is something that should help us do our job better. But this must not become a Wild West: People need to be made aware when they are listening to a machine’s voice, as opposed to one mediated by a human being. Machines are only as objective as the people who set their controls. A third immodest reason to update the Bloomberg Way is me. Every editor-in-chief has his or her peculiar preferences, and they are reflected in the style books of the organizations that they lead. My preferences are sometimes different from Matt’s, just as my successor’s will be different from mine. But—and yes, I just used that word—we still agree on the big things, the eternal verities. The army is still marching in the same direction, toward the sound of gunfire. John Micklethwait

1 What We Do

Our mandate at Bloomberg Editorial & Research is to be the chronicle of capitalism, meaning we provide definitive coverage of everything that matters in business, finance, markets, economics, technology, and politics and government. This requires focusing our firepower so that terminal users, television viewers, radio listeners and magazine readers get what they want, when they want it. Sometimes, our most important story of the day is a scoop that moves markets and beats the competition by seconds. At other times, our biggest story is an astonishing, richly reported investigative piece, an exclusive television interview or an interactive graphic that guides the user through a complex topic. No matter the vehicle, meaningful reporting on money and power—and the people who have them—is at the heart of our mission. To quote Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Matt Winkler: Following the Bloomberg Way requires precision in language, attention to detail, a hunger for knowledge, persistence in getting any task accomplished no matter how daunting, the humility to recognize that none of us is infallible and the decency to address anyone and everyone with concern and kindness.

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The Bloomberg Way

These goals bridge the gulf between the pressure to “just get the news out” and the responsibility to get it right the first time. We can and should do both.

The Bloomberg Way  Guiding Principles It isn’t news if it isn’t true. Accuracy is the most important principle in journalism. There is no such thing as being first with news if we’re wrong. Show, don’t tell. Support statements and assertions with facts, figures and anecdotes. Write with nouns and verbs; be sparing with adjectives and adverbs. News is a surprise. What do we know today that we didn’t know yesterday? That question will offer guidance when deciding which facts to highlight first. Why are we reporting this? Why are we reporting this now? No story is worth writing unless we answer these questions for our readers. Names make news. People want to read and hear about people—the actors and the victims. The bigger the name, the bigger the audience. Not invented here. We immediately report news from other organizations and then seek to advance the story. We don’t accept the idea that if we didn’t break the news, it didn’t happen, and we should never fail to acknowledge who did break the news. Follow the money. Explaining the role of money in all its forms—from capital flows to executive compensation to the cost of an acquisition to election spending—reveals the meaning of news. We then examine how that information relates to shareholders, bondholders and anyone else with money at stake. One story for all. Write with a style and simplicity that a layman can understand and a professional can appreciate. The more we prepare, the luckier we will be. We develop the necessary sources and knowledge in advance so we can deliver

What We Do

3

our best judgment when news breaks. That is what readers, listeners and viewers need most at the moment their interest is greatest. We adhere to the Five Fs. We strive to be the most Factual word on any topic, the First to report the news and the Fastest to report the details. We should also be the Final word—or the most definitive source—on major events as well as the Future word that tells our audience what’s next. Ethics & Standards We avoid conflicts of interest, whether they’re actual or perceived, whether they’re political, financial or personal. We are not deceptive, duplicitous or dishonest in gathering and reporting news. We don’t hide the fact that we are journalists, and are transparent in interactions with our sources, readers and viewers. We never break the law, and we don’t ask another person or group to violate laws on our behalf. We don’t pay sources for information or access, and we don’t accept payments from sources or institutions we cover. We write accurately, making every effort to verify facts, provide appropriate context and obtain complete responses to accusations. We correct any errors promptly, transparently and completely. We write fairly, without bias or agenda. Opinion and commentary are clearly labeled as such. We don’t use any public forum, including social media, to express opinions in a way that would harm our ability to cover the news impartially. We are often expected to cover news about customers of Bloomberg LP. We do not allow commercial considerations to shade our news judgment because that would undermine our integrity and reputation. (For more, please see Ethics & Standards, Chapter 5.)

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The Bloomberg Way

Bloomberg Editorial & Research Few news organizations in the world have more reach or depth than Bloomberg Editorial & Research. With more than 2,700 journalists and analysts in about 120 countries, we can cover just about anything. If a finance minister holds a press conference in Accra, Ghana, we’re there. If workers threaten to strike at a Chilean copper mine, we’re there. If a tech company introduces a major new product in Silicon Valley, we’re there, too. We use the Bloomberg Terminal to make connections that our competitors can’t replicate. Our journalists can leverage data to show that Kenya had the most stable currency in Africa in 2016, that the state of California is the world’s sixth-biggest economy, or that the stock sold in Facebook’s IPO was more costly on a price-to-earnings basis than almost every company in the S&P 500 Index. Showing this relative value makes our journalism unique. Our team includes not just reporters and editors, but also photographers, TV anchors, analysts, Terminal Tip social-media managers, economists, opinion writers and podcast producThroughout this book you will find boxes like this one ers. We expect our journalists to wear highlighting the Bloomberg many hats—it’s not uncommon for functions we use to break a reporter to file headlines from an news and add context to our reporting. event, write a story featuring charts he or she designed, and then appear on Bloomberg Television. This kind of talent enables us to produce journalism in the following forms: Breaking News: This encompasses journalism ranging from rapid-fire headlines delivered in a fraction of a second to stories that report on developments accurately and quickly. One of our most efficient vehicles for such stories is First Word, which publishes articles written as a series of bullet points rather than paragraphs. These pieces can also serve as standalone stories aimed at market professionals who don’t have the time to read long-form prose.

What We Do

5

Beat Reporting: We organize the newsroom by coverage area so journalists become experts on their beats—whether they’re reporting on mining, politics or private equity firms. Beat reporters are responsible for getting the news out and then looking more deeply into what it all means.To tackle complex subjects from multinational mergers to arcane financial instruments, we often have to dig to get the right quotes, color and background to tell a compelling narrative. It’s stories like these that landed Bloomberg a Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Analysis and Research: Readers, viewers and listeners also need sophisticated insight into the economy, corporate strategy and finance. Our journalists look for the meaning behind the headlines and turn to our Bloomberg Intelligence and Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysts for their in-depth research on companies and industries. Opinion: Under the umbrella of Bloomberg View, we publish editorials representing the views of the company and its primary owner, Michael Bloomberg, as well as opinion pieces from independent columnists across the political and economic spectrum. In 2015, we started Gadfly to provide fast commentary on pivotal market, financial and corporate news. In 2017, we introduced Bloomberg Prophets to deliver actionable insights from real-world market participants. Data: Bloomberg’s vast collection of information provides both a source of story ideas as well as the evidence needed to back up our reporting. We create charts to accompany print and broadcast stories and design ambitious interactive graphics based on our trove of data. Once we’ve produced the content, here are the main channels we use to convey that information to our audience: The Terminal

The terminal is the heart and soul of Bloomberg, and it is where our stories start. The “front page” of the terminal is TOP, with a constantly updated mix of breaking news, scoops, analysis, commentary, charts and graphics, along with feature stories and videos. All of Editorial & Research contributes.

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The Bloomberg Way

Many terminal customers also get their news from alerts pegged to companies, securities, people or keywords. Our news is indexed on hundreds of pages, so readers can find what they need, as soon as it’s available. Some readers also come to the terminal via customized news alert emails on topics ranging from cotton to interest-rate swaps. Terminal stories appear in many languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German, Turkish, Portuguese and Korean. Our teams produce original articles in those languages as well as translations of published stories. The first Bloomberg News story—a piece about a personnel change at Goldman Sachs—ran on June 14, 1990, when the company had about 9,500 terminal customers. Today, we produce thousands of stories and headlines a day for about 325,000 subscribers. Radio & Television

Bloomberg’s radio roots go back to 1992, when the company purchased the WNEW station in New York. Today, Bloomberg Radio is broadcast around the world. In the U.S., Bloomberg Radio reports and programs are syndicated to more than 300 affiliates. We also broadcast on WBBR in New York, WXKS in Boston, KNEW in San Francisco and WDCH in Washington. Almost two years after Bloomberg Radio got its start, Bloomberg Television began. Now anchored from studios in Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney, its reach is also global, with broadcast affiliates from India to Mexico and a network available in Terminal Tip MEDI more than 470 million homes. Watch Bloomberg TV, listen to Bloomberg Radio and find clips of the mostwatched interviews and events.

Magazines

Bloomberg publishes two magazines: Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets.

What We Do

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Businessweek, which Bloomberg acquired in 2009, offers a global perspective, timely insights and unique stories to more than 600,000 subscribers. Markets began publishing in July 1992 and was relaunched in 2016 as a bimonthly publication. The magazine caters to financial professionals—mainly Bloomberg Terminal clients, who get it as part of their subscription. Digital

Bloomberg Digital is our gateway to a global audience and reaches more than 80 million unique users monthly. Our website is organized into sections dedicated to Markets, Technology, Politics, Pursuits, Opinion and Businessweek. Bloomberg.com runs a selection of stories from Bloomberg News but does not generally publish content from First Word, Bloomberg Intelligence or other specialized platforms. Our digital team produces original reporting, graphics, videos and podcasts. It also runs our social-media feeds on Facebook and Twitter via our @business account, among others. Bloomberg Intelligence

BI is our research arm, providing in-depth analysis and data on industries, companies, credit, government, economics and litigation. BI has almost 300 research professionals who together write about 500 short reports a day. BI has been part of the Editorial & Research group since early 2015, and the relationship is unique, given Terminal Tip BI’s mission. Editorial and BI may BI talk to each other in general terms Find Bloomberg Intelligence about topics, but each team should research by sector, topic protect its own information and or region. View reports on critical themes. sources, including unpublished stories and research. Reporters are free to quote from published BI reports

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The Bloomberg Way

in their stories and to interview analysts and economists who have been approved to speak with the media. (You can read more about this relationship in Ethics & Standards, Chapter 5.) Bloomberg New Energy Finance

BNEF offers tools and data to track changes in the global energy system. Terminal Tip BNEF The group provides independent analysis about the entire spectrum View research from of technologies and industries, Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Filter by sector, from renewables and storage to fuel geography and type of cells, electric vehicle batteries, grid research. integration, liquefied natural gas, carbon markets and climate negotiations. BNEF also hosts annual summits in London, New York and Shanghai for energy leaders. Bloomberg Briefs

Briefs are a stable of newsletters that provide curated news on topics such as hedge funds, municipal bonds and economics. Daybreak

Our customizable morning news service started in 2016 as a one-stop mobile product that takes less than 10 minutes to read and gives users everything they need to be ready for work. Delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday from cities including New York, London and Hong Kong, Terminal Tip each edition is divided into four secDAYB tions: “Need to Know” summarizes View the most recent edition the biggest news of the day; “My of Daybreak. Topics” allows readers to select news from industries and regions; “My Tickers” provides headlines on companies in users’ portfolios; and “Nice to Know” touches on lighter fare, from sports and entertainment to science.

What We Do

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Bloomberg LIVE

Our events group convenes newsmakers, influencers and up-andcomers for invitation-only gatherings that range from small roundtable discussions to multiday conferences attended by hundreds. Bloomberg journalists conduct the onstage interviews and moderate panel discussions designed to generate editorial content across platforms. Major summits include Breakaway for chief executive officers, Invest for institutional investors and The Year Ahead, which examines the most urgent topics facing business leaders. QuickTake

Bloomberg began publishing QuickTake explainers in 2013, providing concise guides to topics in the news. There are now hundreds of these authoritative, easy-to-read primers on the most important and complex issues of the day, from El Niño and tax inversions to sustainable investment and driverless cars. Each QuickTake links to news stories, videos and View commentaries, providing the best of Bloomberg in one place. They are living articles, revised and updated in response to news. They are accessible by typing QUICK or NI QUICK on the Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg BNA

Bloomberg BNA, based in Arlington, Virginia, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bloomberg Inc. that covers legal, tax and regulatory issues. In 2017, Bloomberg Government, also known as BGOV, became part of BNA. The group is managed separately from Editorial.

Collaboration in Action Having multiple platforms gives us a great advantage over the competition, but it also raises the stakes. Success relies on communication between our teams and regions, beginning with detailed preparation and concluding with stories and other content that break news, move markets or have far-reaching impact. Collaboration is the cornerstone of this organization, and one of the most important ways by which we will judge our performance in the years ahead.

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The Bloomberg Way

The first step is to focus on the mission—what are we trying to achieve? The next is to consider what other parts of Bloomberg Editorial & Research benefit from knowing about and participating in a specific event. This could be as relatively uncomplicated as a company’s earnings release or a central bank press conference. It could also be an event that takes months of planning and coordination, such as the Davos World Economic Forum, a country’s election coverage or an interview with a corporate or political leader. Take, for example, Bloomberg’s exclusive interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok in September 2016. Our pursuit of Putin began with a reporter in Moscow lobbying the Kremlin for more than a year to show his advisers the breadth and depth of Bloomberg’s global reach, including our multiple media formats and languages. That was just the beginning. After we landed the two-hour interview, scores of print, TV, radio, web, visual media, social media and local-language journalists collaborated to publish content on more than 15 Bloomberg platforms and wires in seven languages. Here’s how it happened: Immediately after the interview, we published a raft of flash headlines for terminal customers, including: PUTIN SAYS DNC HACK WAS A PUBLIC SERVICE, RUSSIA DIDN’T DO IT PUTIN SEES ROSNEFT SALE AS SOON AS THIS YR TO EASE BUDGET PAIN PUTIN SAYS NO NEED TO TAP FOREIGN DEBT MARKETS FOR NOW PUTIN PUSHES FOR OIL FREEZE DEAL WITH OPEC, EXEMPTION FOR IRAN U.S., RUSSIA NEAR COOPERATION ACCORD ON SYRIA, PUTIN SAYS

Terminal Tip

ROSN LI GIP See the intraday performance of Rosneft’s shares.

The response was almost instantaneous. Putin’s comments about Syria, OPEC and privatization prompted a rise in the ruble and oil, while Russian bond yields fell. Shares of Rosneft PJSC, the country’s largest listed oil producer, reached an intraday record (Figure 1.1).

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What We Do

Rosneft’s Two-Day Stock Movement 355

353.60

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Share price (in Rubles)

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09:00

11:00

13:00

02 Sep 2016

15:00

09:00

11:00

13:00

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05 Sep 2016

Source: Bloomberg

Figure 1.1 Rosneft reaches intraday record At the same time, First Word was filling out the headlines with short stories written in its traditional bullet-point format, and beat reporters were publishing longer narratives for rotation in the TOP page. Those included three exclusives: Putin’s views on the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails; comments on how he’d like Russia and OPEC to reach a deal on freezing oil supply; and his plans to sell a stake in Rosneft. A Briefs newsletter seized on the OPEC story to add perspective on the energy angle. Meanwhile, the Daybreak team led its daily morning digest with Putin’s comments, and the QuickTake team updated its succinct explainer on Putin (“Russia’s Most Popular Man”) to include items from the interview. We also published transcripts in English and Russian with the full text of the interview. Bloomberg Television, Radio and our Podcast team highlighted different parts of the interview throughout the day as viewers and

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The Bloomberg Way

Stories relevant to different countries ran concurrently in six other languages: Russian:

Mandarin:

Japanese:

German: Eurozone könnte schrumpfen nach Brexit-Präzedenzfall—Putin Portuguese: Putin pressiona por acordo de congelamento de petróleo com Opep Korean:

listeners awoke in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Bloomberg TV later produced a one-hour program featuring highlights (Figure 1.2). On the web, Bloomberg.com released a special section featuring 17 stories (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/special-reports/ vladimir-putin). The Social Media team tweeted highlights from the interview, generating more than a million views, and posted items on Facebook and Instagram. Bloomberg View weighed in with an editorial and several columns.

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Figure 1.2 Bloomberg TV previews the Putin interview Then came the high-level political reaction. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded to Putin’s comments about a territorial dispute. And Putin’s observations on the U.S. election led to a retort from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. We reported on that, too: Putin Sees Opening With Japan on World War II Island Dispute Putin Blasts Both Trump and Clinton for ‘Shock’ Tactics Clinton Camp Says Putin Remarks Show Aim to Disrupt Election

Our coverage didn’t end there. Bloomberg Businessweek showcased Putin on its cover the following week and ran part of the interview in a question-and-answer format (Figure 1.3). The content was published or followed by major media around the world, from the Financial Times, Wall

Terminal Tip

MAG See the latest copies of Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets magazines.

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The Bloomberg Way

Street Journal and Reuters to Russia’s Interfax, TASS, RIA Novosti and dozens of websites in China. It’s clear that collaboration before and after the event helped magnify the interview’s impact. To borrow from Aristotle, at Bloomberg the whole is always greater than the sum of our parts. Working together makes that possible.

Figure 1.3 Bloomberg Businessweek’s Vladimir Putin cover

2 How We Report

At the heart of any news operation—whether it’s a one-person industry newsletter or a global wire service—is reporting. The world is awash in opinion, conjecture and conventional wisdom. Bloomberg’s audience depends on us to cut through the noise and chaff, to gather and assess information quickly, correctly and wisely. Our journalists have several advantages—the Bloomberg brand, which conveys authority and accuracy; the terminal, which provides a deep trove of data and background; and a global network of bureaus, which enables us to cover news almost anywhere in the world. But ultimately, the quality of our news depends on our ability to observe, to interview, to research, to investigate and to cultivate sources. That’s what this chapter is designed to help you do.

Learning a Beat How do great reporters master their beats? How do they get scoop after scoop, front row seats at news events, and calls returned from newsmakers? It doesn’t happen overnight. Reporters assigned to a new area of coverage need to invest time to establish credibility. The best journalists take the following steps:

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The Bloomberg Way

Read, read, read

Sources will often talk only to the most knowledgeable journalists. Immerse yourself in the minutiae of the beat by reading articles, academic studies, research from Bloomberg Intelligence, industry newsletters, court papers, conference call transcripts, books and memos. A commodities reporter who visits the American Metal Market website will learn about the upcoming Steel Tube and Pipe Conference. (Yes, it’s real.) The editor who studies Securities and Exchange Commission filings can spot when a company changes its stance on pending litigation. By being well-read, you also can avoid spending weeks reporting a piece only to discover the competition broke the same story months earlier. Find out who knows the most

Identify newsmakers and people behind the scenes influencing what happens on the beat. Who are the managers, lawyers, bankers, investors and economists making or executing key decisions? The people search function PEOP on Terminal Tip the Bloomberg Terminal helps you NEWS ON find profiles by job title, education, For news about any topic, location, industry and keyword. simply type NEWS ON followed by the subject, Looking for a chief financial offidate and wire. For example: cer in London who’s a graduate of NEWS ON VODAFONE IN Harvard Business School? A quick INDIA ON BLOOMBERG LAST MONTH search lists a handful of names. Similarly, the security ownership function HDS reveals a company’s biggest shareholders, and the fund screener FSRC tracks how fund managers perform against their peers. When reaching out, you may need to start with analysts, lowerlevel executives or public relations departments. It helps to end every conversation with, “Who else knows about this?” Keep track of your sources using a modern equivalent of a Rolodex, preferably

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a spreadsheet or an app on your phone that can be accessed on the fly. Jotting down a note each time you speak to someone can prepare you for the next conversation. Always take care to protect names and other information that could identify confidential sources. Some sources may be less obvious. A reporter who moves to Detroit to cover the automotive Terminal Tip PEOP industry will want to talk to local dealerships, auto-parts manufacUse the People Search turers and union workers, as well database to find the world’s most influential people. Sort as company management. If you’re by career, location, industry, covering a big retail chain, don’t just university and keyword. meet the CEO. Visit stores and talk to employees and customers. Collect string

Be disciplined about gathering details, background and examples— also known as “string.” If a company arranges a quick interview or meeting with a newly appointed head of a small unit, spend part of the conversation gathering the kind of personal information you’d want if she’s later named CEO. How did she pick this career? Who was instrumental in her success? What are her interests outside of work? Develop a system for archiving notes and quotes so they’re easily readable, searchable and usable. What are the keywords that need to be in every document? If you keep paper notebooks, are they dated and organized so you don’t have to spend hours digging for a crucial anecdote or quote? If you record an interview, do you immediately transcribe the relevant piece and then label the file so you can easily find it again? Be sure to note if comments were on the record, off the record or on background. There’s often a payoff. In 2015, Bloomberg wrote about Chinese families attempting to secure life-saving cancer drugs for their children (Figure 2.1). Our reporter visited families’ homes, observed their daily lives and went through bills and medical documents to

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get details. She transcribed her notes daily and gave readers these compelling details: Three mothers share a monthly food budget of about 1,800 yuan to ensure their children have some pork, fish or eggs in every meal. They wait until the kids finish to eat what’s left. When asked if he’d like new toys, one little boy, Sibo, gave an answer that was uncharacteristic for a four-year-old: “No, I need to save money to buy medicines, I need the medicines to live.”

Figure 2.1 A child in eastern China battling leukemia Get out of the office

Reporters who stay glued to their desks can miss details that create the most memorable parts of a story. Go where the action is and experience it yourself. Meet people where they work or relax—in an office, on the factory floor, in a coffee shop—to have more candid conversations and note how things look, smell and sound. Industry conferences are fruitful places to build a network. A reporter who’s armed with a steady handshake and a stack of business cards can meet people cold for hours. Better yet, find out who’s

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likely to attend and send them notes in advance to see if they might spare some time on the sidelines. Remember, many conference attendees are from out of town, have time to kill and are there to network, too. Examine the data

Politicians study voter polls, economists examine unemployment statistics, marketing officers hunt for trends in income and demographics. So you, too, should dig into the numbers. Learn your beat’s specialized sets of numbers. Hotel companies, for example, measure their health by RevPAR—or revenue per available room, calculated by multiplying the average daily room rate by its occupancy rate. Beverage companies pay attention to the volume of liquid sold. Ask analysts, investors and executives what data points are important to them. Bloomberg Intelligence can also help. For example, a 2017 BI report on energy deals used data on oil exploration and production, takeovers and valuations to examine whether the pace of U.S. mergers and acquisitions would accelerate or slow. Data can back up, or disprove, what sources tell us. Sometimes the data become the story. Sophisticated number crunching helped Bloomberg publish one of its most-read stocks stories in 2015. The reporters exported more than 20,000 lines of daily market performance into a spreadsheet and discovered a surprise: Even though benchmark indexes were near record highs, investors lacked confidence in equities. The story: Stocks Can’t Get Rally Going With Longest Drought Since ‘94 Stringing together gains in the American stock market has become next to impossible. Knocked down 1.5 percent Wednesday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has now gone 26 days without posting gains in back-to-back sessions, the longest stretch since 1994, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Losses in biotechnology and chip companies dragged U.S. stocks to a third day of declines, interrupting another run at a record for the Nasdaq Composite Index as investors sold the year’s best-performing equities.

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Prepare!

The more we prepare, the smarter we’ll appear when news breaks. Before the Supreme Court issued its 2013 decisions on gay marriage (Figure 2.2), our reporter had spent months researching possible outcomes—and then he prepared 19 possible leads. The legwork enabled Bloomberg to be first with the news and resulted in this lead: A divided U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal law that defines marriage as a heterosexual union, saying it violates the rights of married gay couples by denying them government benefits.

Using the terminal is another way to provide instant context on breaking news. By analyzing data in advance, we can report that a company’s profit rose for the first time in five years, while others write that profit rose 2 percent. Which is more meaningful? You can also use the ALRT function to stay on top of breaking news, economic reports and unusual moves in securities.

Figure 2.2 A demonstrator outside the U.S. Supreme Court

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Don’t forget about logistics

News is unpredictable. Reporters need to have reliable access to phone numbers and email addresses of their sources and editors so they can get in touch at any hour. Find a secure way to store key contacts in your phone or email. If disaster strikes, the reporter who grabs her press pass and phone charger before heading out the door stands the best chance of breaking news. If you’re assigned to cover people or topics outside your usual area of expertise, think through what you’ll need to be successful. For scheduled events, find out how the news will be disseminated—such as by email, website posting, regulatory filing or an executive’s speech—and devise a strategy ahead of time to publish as quickly as possible. If the announcement will arrive electronically while you’re at the press conference, arrange in advance for a colleague at the office to send headlines and publish the first take. If an announcement might come in the middle of the night in New York, alert an editor in Asia or Europe.

Sourcing Reporters are only as good as their sources, who are often the foundation for the biggest scoops and the best feature stories. Finding those sources—and gaining their trust—is a matter of patience and persistence. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Every beat has its own culture, and reporters have their own strengths and interests that can be used to make inroads and build relationships. Can you talk for hours with software engineers about the intricacies of coding? Do you pore over spreadsheets and look for patterns in data? Do you run marathons or follow cricket? Are you a master of social media or small talk over a cocktail? Any of these traits can help. Here are some strategies to consider: Get your name out there. It may seem obvious. But the first thing to do is write or broadcast. Sources are typically more willing

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to talk with you if they can easily find or already recognize your byline—whether you’ve been covering every news development or recently wrote a memorable magazine feature. Social media and TV appearances can amplify your presence. It’s just coffee. Many people are willing to meet a reporter to explain how their job or industry works. Even if they vow not to disclose news, such conversations provide insights into how they view their business. It’s also a chance to demonstrate your expertise. Sometimes people who initially swear off providing news to journalists change their minds, especially when dealing with reporters who know their stuff. Keep in touch. Don’t contact sources only when a big story breaks. If news slows, give them a call. A government reporter who checks in frequently with legislative aides can find out when a senator decides to block legislation. The reporter who regularly emails a managing director at a bank will have the best chance of getting the scoop when that person gets promoted. Seek diversity. While it’s natural to return to people who’ve been helpful in the past, resist relying too much on a small pool of sources. And draw from diverse groups. Great reporters seek a wide variety of perspectives, which hones understanding and enriches stories. That means talking to people who reflect a mix of backgrounds, gender, ethnicities and nationalities. Consider credibility. Find sources who have a record of accuracy. Citing an economist who has correctly predicted gross domestic product the past six years carries more authority than quoting someone who has gotten it wrong half the time. A broadcast interview with the manager of the year’s best-performing mutual fund instantly adds credibility to a TV segment. Learn from defeat. You just spent a week chasing tips that your company is poised to name a new CEO, and your competitor lands the scoop. First, do what you can to match the story. Once the dust settles, autopsy what happened. Now that the news is out, your sources may be willing to tell you about when and

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how they first learned of the decision. Don’t berate your sources because they didn’t tell you first. Instead, use it as an opportunity to map out how information flows behind the scenes. That sometimes points to sources you hadn’t considered, or helps you ask questions in a more productive way. Build momentum. Scoops beget scoops. If you break the news that a hedge fund just fired a trader for overvaluing bets on bonds, don’t ease off and let your competitor get the next exclusive. Make sure your sources know about your story and use it to start conversations about the next development. You might learn that the trader wasn’t the only one doing it—or that the person is in talks to join a rival firm. Be discreet. Never forget that sources may take a calculated risk if they talk with you. When meeting the first time, ask how they want to be contacted. Do they prefer calls at the office, or on their mobile phone? Do they mind if you occasionally send them interesting articles? Avoid blast emails that can give everyone insight into your source list. Don’t drop breadcrumbs about people you know. “Someone in your Beijing widget division told me your company is pulling out of Russia,” will provide a strong hint about your other source. Sources don’t like being put on the defensive, and it can backfire if you tell someone, “I have a senior source at your competitor.” If a source asks how you landed a scoop, respond politely but firmly: “I don’t discuss sourcing, just as I wouldn’t divulge what you tell me off the record.” Anonymous Sources

Bloomberg uses anonymous sources only when there’s no other way to get the news. If a person asks for something other than an on-therecord interview, define exactly what the terms are—because ground rules aren’t universal. At Bloomberg, an interview conducted on background, not for attribution or off the record means the information can be published only under conditions negotiated with the source. The terms usually

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mean the person won’t be identified by name. He or she may agree to a reference such as a U.S. State Department official or a store manager, or we may say a person with knowledge of the matter. It’s not enough to agree that an interview is on background, not for attribution or off the record. People often interpret those phrases differently. So, negotiate for the most transparent attribution possible, and be sure you and your source agree on what is or isn’t usable. Sometimes the source is giving you information solely to help you understand an issue and it can’t be used in any way, including as a tip to be verified elsewhere. When we want to use anonymous sourcing in a story, discuss these questions with a manager: Why should we trust these people? How do they know what they claim to know? What’s their motive? Why don’t they want their names used? Do all the anonymous sources agree? Is there documentation that will bolster or erode our confidence in the tip? Look for sources with direct knowledge of what’s going on, not those who heard information secondhand. Let’s say you talk to four people for a story: A senior government official who attended a meeting with the president, plus three other officials who know about the meeting. What if those three officials heard about the meeting from your first source? You really have only one source, not four. Stories that use anonymous sources are scrutinized by senior editors and producers because readers must rely on our judgment. We need to be confident in the information we publish and may need to describe the limitations of what we know. For example, we might have multiple, independent sources saying that a company’s IPO has been delayed, and we’ll publish that. But if we have only one source saying the IPO will be held next December, we might leave that detail out because our confidence is lower. Any story that uses multiple, unidentified people as sources must be approved by at least one executive editor or two managing editors, or one managing editor and a bureau chief in the country where the news originates. If a story relies on a single anonymous source, at least one executive editor needs to review and approve the reporting.

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Here are some additional best practices: ●●

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Protect your sources. Do not put sources’ names or other closely identifying information into story drafts or into emails, including those sent to colleagues or editors. If you get a request from an outside lawyer or an agency to disclose a source, contact your editor and our in-house counsel before responding. Use anonymous sources for factual information, not for opinions or for badmouthing a person. Someone telling us her colleague has a “bad temper” isn’t as compelling as a confirmed depiction of a time he punched a wall. Only rarely will we publish direct quotes from unidentified people. Such instances require approval from a senior manager. As always, contact the subjects of anonymous information, allow them time to respond and add their comments to the story before it’s published. Give comments appropriate placement high in the story. Don’t give anyone a clue as to where the information originated. Also, don’t share information about your sources with outside parties, such as investors or analysts, or with more colleagues than necessary. Always verify the authenticity of documents obtained via an anonymous source. When possible, describe the document’s contents and presentation. How many pages? What was the date? Is there a time stamp? Be aware you might not want to disclose, either in conversation or in the story, whether you possess the document or simply reviewed it. If there is a concern about a document or how it was obtained, check with a senior manager and newsroom counsel before posting it on the terminal or the web. Don’t share the document externally unless it has already been posted on the terminal. Never mislead readers about a source’s identity, even to divert suspicion. For example, don’t write “people” when only one person supplied the information. Don’t allow a person to lie on the record while supplying contrary information anonymously. Likewise, don’t say that a person

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●●

declined to comment when the person spoke to us on an anonymous basis. Avoid jargon, such as sources said or it is understood or Bloomberg has learned. It is better to say “a person” or “people” said this, with as specific attribution as possible. To the extent possible, describe how the people know what they know, why they are willing to share information and why they are insisting on, and entitled to, anonymity. Some examples: A person present at the meeting, who declined to be identified because the discussions were private; two lobbyists supporting the bill who don’t want to identify their clients; executives who have been briefed on the negotiations over recent weeks. Here’s a great example: JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has transformed the bank’s chief investment office in the past five years, increasing the size and risk of its speculative bets, according to five former executives with direct knowledge of the changes.

In headlines, our style is to use the phrase “is said to” when the information conveyed there is based on anonymous sources. The signal is especially important because some readers may get news from headlines without opening the story. Keep clarity in mind: The headline “Widget Co. Is Said to Expect Loss” is a better indicator of anonymous sourcing than “Widget Co. Said to Expect Loss,” which could be read as an announcement from the company. After the first version of the story is published, the headline may be adjusted on Bloomberg.com to remove the “said to” language for a more general online audience.

Interviewing Any journalist who has tried to hold a recorder to a stranger’s face knows interviews can be terrifying. People, especially powerful ones, aren’t often keen to talk openly. Even the juiciest conversations lose steam. Sharp questions and smart answers don’t come magically. But interviewing is also a thrill. What other job gives you license to question geniuses, moguls, convicts, revolutionaries and tyrants?

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Just a few words can reveal vision, panic, regret or rage. When you’re lucky, you can sometimes hear several of those things in a single line. Interviews get you more than the words that end up between quotation marks. They reveal context that gives a story its shape, anecdotes that provide its color, warning signs about wrong turns, and leads on new sources and ideas. There isn’t just one way to make an interview work, just like there isn’t a single foolproof method to prevent blather or one-word answers. However, there are things you can do to improve your odds. First, build a plump and diverse source list. Regularly reconnect with old sources and look for new ones. The more you know about your sources, the better your interviews will be (Figure 2.3). But you can’t know everyone before you interview them. When you ask a stranger for an interview, consider which opening strategy has the best shot. Phone calls from reporters appeal to egotists. But they can terrify hermits, so you can start approaching them with

Figure 2.3 General Motors Co. CEO Mary Barra speaks to the media

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an email to a work or personal account, or a message via LinkedIn. If you know someone can’t talk at work, look up home or mobile phone numbers and make a call at a reasonable hour. If someone is glued to a mobile phone, send a text. When all else fails, show up in person. Never hide the fact that you are a Bloomberg journalist. Once you ask for an interview, explain what kind of story you’re interested in and what sorts of questions you’ll ask.You don’t have to give everything away, but you also don’t want to mislead the subject of, say, a highly critical investigative story by claiming you’re doing a breezy profile. If a source is particularly reluctant, ask for context and advice first. Then try to move the highlights onto the record. You may have to deal with spokespeople. Some are constructive and trustworthy. But public relations people often insert themselves into conversations, even when their bosses or colleagues are happy to speak with a reporter one-on-one. Set ground rules early. Push back if a spokesman is constantly interrupting, or trying to tweak or halt the discussion. Figure out your style. Some reporters are matter-of-fact; others are funny. You’re in good shape if you can stay true to yourself and to the voice you speak with in the newsroom, as long as you avoid being rude or careless. In-person interviews are better than those over the phone, which usually beat questions sent over email. Two interviews are better than one, and three beat two. Being on the record almost always makes for better stories than going on background. Readers love real names, especially recognizable ones. Anonymous quotes are usually not usable, but an on-the-record quote from the biggest name isn’t worth much if it’s stale or full of jargon. During the interview, avoid long questions, don’t dominate the conversation and don’t use it as a way to show off your expertise. Instead, keep your interview on track and make sure you get your questions answered. Don’t multitask during interviews. Eloquent answers glide by a reporter who’s distracted by Twitter or email. Also, don’t rely solely on a recording device—take notes. That will make it easier to find

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the material you want to use later on. If your interview subject starts speaking off the record, turn off your recorder. When the people you’re interviewing use lingo, ask them to say it again but in a way a novice could understand. Eliminate from your story canned words that sound like they were written by a team of communications specialists. “Our solutions help actualize sustainable, long-term value for customers,” isn’t something anyone wants to read. A quote should inform, infuriate, entertain, or tell you something about the person who said it. A good quote is even better if it’s spoken in the context of the real world, while your source fiddles with a gold watch, stares down subordinates, or dips steak into mustard. You will wind up sitting across a desk from an executive who meets your questions with monosyllabic grunts, so come prepared. Read about interviewees beforehand. Write down questions, or at least a game plan for interviews. Whenever possible, allow the conversation to expand from your planned dialogue into an exchange with its own momentum and emotion. That means following the speaker’s lead while improvising to make sure you get your questions answered. Resist if someone calls back later to try to persuade you to retroactively put something off the record. Clearing quotes over email is usually a bad idea, because it makes good lines vulnerable to trims and edits. Avoid the situation entirely by establishing the rules beforehand. Basic journalistic ethics are essential. Introduce yourself as a reporter, get permission before you record a private call or meeting, and write words as they were said, except to clean up throat-clearing and minor grammatical mistakes. Getting verbatim quotes is worth it: Each brag, threat, insult, denial and explanation is special in its own way. It takes curiosity to come up with good questions, courage to ask them and focus to listen for answers. Don’t let the people we report on—the people whose money and power are transforming the world—keep their insights, boasts, delusions and anecdotes to themselves.

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Breaking News Fresh bread gets stale a day or two out of the oven. Bananas become overripe after several days on your kitchen counter. Breaking news is even more fragile. It begins to lose value moments after it becomes public. So Bloomberg reporters and editors need to get the story right, get it fast and keep updating it as long as there are important and useful new developments. Sometimes breaking news, like corporate earnings or a GDP release, comes on schedule and we can prepare headlines and templates in advance. Other times, we break the news exclusively, thanks to our sourcing and expertise. Or an Terminal Tip ALRT unexpected press release hits the wire and we scramble to present the news Set up alerts for market and explain the importance of it. moves, news and economic releases. In the heat of the moment, it’s critical to be cautious. Be sure of your source. There are plenty of hoax tweets and press releases. Check every word of a breaking-news headline. If in doubt, have a colleague look at your words before they are sent. If you have any reason to think a press release, email, website or tweet is a hoax, stop. Don’t send out headlines if something seems off, such as typos or an unfamiliar source. We usually start our coverage with a series of headlines to tell readers the most important elements. An earnings release, for example, can trigger headlines on earnings per share, revenue, dividends, forecasts, job cuts or plant closings, and regulatory developments. When news breaks, follow the steps illustrated in Figure 2.4 and detailed here. Step 1: Send headlines! Before we publish a scoop, broadcast an interview or summarize a competitor’s reporting, we send socalled flash headlines to get the news out. For especially big news, we may also publish red headlines, which signify greater importance to our terminal audience. All headlines must be coded to relevant company tickers and topic categories for clients who

How We Report Headlines

BFW Story

Short Narrative

Within 5 minutes of headlines

News Breaks

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Broadcast picks up headlines

Update, Analysis and Multimedia Coordinated coverage including Daybreak items, graphics, opinion pieces, TV features, Briefs newsletters and magazines

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View and Gadfly start analyzing the news

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4

Big stories hit Bloomberg.com

Figure 2.4 Steps to follow when news breaks receive alerts tied to their portfolio or trading positions. For example, the codes MSFT and ERN signal the headline is about Microsoft earnings. In many cases, automation helps with these efforts. (See How We Use Data, Chapter 4, for more on automated headlines and stories.) Step 2: Fill the headlines with a Bloomberg First Word piece that brings together the key elements in several bullet-point sentences. BFW stories are written for terminal clients who depend on real-time news and can include abbreviations and language that specialists understand. Fills typically follow within five minutes of the headlines. (For more on First Word style, see How We Write, Chapter 3.) Step 3: If the news is significant, write a short narrative, usually no more than four paragraphs. This is ideally executed by the editor in charge of the story, with input from the reporter. Step 4: Regroup to discuss the way forward. Coordinate with colleagues across platforms to determine the best way to stay ahead of the competition, ranging from story updates to TV guests to special web features. As the day goes on, you’ll need to come up with fresh angles. What follows is one example of how to put these steps into action.

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The Megadeal

Here’s how Bloomberg covered Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s announcement in October 2015 of its plan to purchase SABMiller Plc for more than $100 billion, at the time the biggest purchase in the beverage industry. Several headlines (Step 1) moved just after 7 a.m. London time, including this one, which was sent red to indicate major news: *AB INBEV, SABMILLER REACH AGREEMENT ON GBP44/SHARE ACQUISITION

A short First Word story (Step 2) followed at 7:04 a.m., with this headline: AB InBev, SABMiller Reach Agreement on GBP44/Shr Cash Purchase

Our first narrative (Step 3) moved at 7:08 a.m.: AB InBev Agrees to Buy SABMiller for $104 Billion in Record Deal Anheuser-Busch InBev NV agreed to buy SABMiller Plc for 68 billion pounds ($104 billion), raising its bid to clinch a record industry deal that brings one out of every three beers sold worldwide under a single company. The Budweiser maker offered 4,400 pence a share in cash for a majority of the shares in its nearest competitor, gaining brands such as Peroni and Grolsch, and giving it control of about half the industry’s profit. The price is 46 percent above SABMiller’s closing value on Sept. 15, the day before the companies disclosed they were in contact about a potential bid.

A more complete story moved at 7:37 a.m. that included information about why the deal was happening: After years of speculation, the deal has been hastened by the impact of slowing economies in the emerging markets of China and Brazil. A 20 percent drop in SABMiller shares in the months preceding AB InBev’s approach and the prospect of an end to cheap credit also served as a catalyst to a takeover. The agreement, which is tentative, caps more than two weeks of back-and-forth negotiations over the price.

Throughout the day, the story was among the top news on Bloomberg Television and Radio, both of which interviewed beverage analysts and Bloomberg reporters. Gadfly weighed in with this

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piece, Heineken Is Fine Drinking Alone, that began, “Heineken is the odd man out in the world’s biggest beer merger, and that suits it just fine.” Bloomberg.com featured some of the stories. To reflect the reaction of the companies’ shares, we wrote a sidebar at 11:26 a.m.: SABMiller Trades Below AB InBev Bid as Arbitragers See Risk SABMiller Plc shares traded as much as 11 percent below the price Anheuser-Busch InBev NV agreed to pay for the beermaker, a bigger discount than usually seen in takeovers. That’s because the deal faces months of scrutiny by antitrust regulators around the world that may yet derail the transaction.

Bloomberg Intelligence provided in-depth analysis with angles ranging from regulatory issues (Regulators to the Fore in AB InBev, SABMiller Mega Brew Cocktail) to global expansion (AB InBev Revises SABMiller Offer Amid Thirst for Africa, China).

Terminal Tip

MARB Look up deal premiums using the merger arbitrage function.

The Multiplatform Approach The AB InBev example in the preceding section focuses mainly on steps one through three of the breaking news cycle. This next one delves into the fourth step—how we work together to get breaking news out on multiple platforms and advance the story. When the Chinese government made a surprise decision to devalue its currency in 2015, Bloomberg Editorial & Research immediately explained what the decision meant for companies, industries, economies, governments and markets around the world. Here were the first headlines, at 9:15 p.m. New York time: CHINA SETS YUAN REFERENCE RATE AT 6.2298 AGAINST U.S. DOLLAR CHINA WEAKENS YUAN REFERENCE RATE BY 1.9%, MOST ON RECORD

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A First Word piece and Bloomberg News narrative followed: China Weakens Yuan Reference Rate by 1.9%, Most on Record PBOC lowers yuan reference rate by 1.86% to 6.2298/USD. •• Shanghai spot rate’s daily moves restricted to 2% on either side of

central bank fixing •• Offshore yuan drops 0.93% to 6.2742/USD in Hong Kong China Weakens Yuan Reference Rate by Record 1.9% Amid Slowdown China’s central bank weakened its daily reference rate for the yuan by a record 1.9 percent amid signs of a deepening slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy . . .

In the following hours, Bloomberg reporters, columnists, analysts and economists jumped on scores of other angles. For example, Bloomberg Television showed how Apple suppliers may benefit from the move, and Radio reported on the market reaction among stocks and commodities. Bloomberg stories included China Southern Airlines Plunges Most in 14    Years on Yuan Decline and Asia Policy Makers Put on Brave Face After China DevaluesYuan. The QuickTakes team updated its Currency Wars explainer. At the same time, Bloomberg View came out with the editorial Even Beijing Doesn’t Know WhatYuan Devaluation Means in print and audio, and several columnists weighed in. Bloomberg Intelligence produced more than 30 short pieces of research and analysis examining potential risks to the smartphone industry, retail sales and exports, among other topics. Bloomberg Briefs issued special reports on what’s next for the region. By the end of the day, Bloomberg platforms had published several hundred stories about aspects of the yuan devaluation and dozens of multimedia reports. Links & Touts

One challenge of producing so much content is making sure our audience can find it. Links and touts in stories help promote this work to our terminal and web audience. Linked or touted content

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includes past stories, BFW Street Wraps, TOPLive blogs, Gadfly analyses, Bloomberg functions, View commentaries and editorials, Brief newsletters, Bloomberg Intelligence bits, TV and radio segments, webcasts and podcasts, and QuickTake explainers. Reporters or editors insert links to specific words within a story. The link is usually a related function, such as an intraday price graph showing how a security has risen or fallen. The computer automatically links to people mentioned in the story as long as a biography exists in the terminal, but make sure it’s the correct BIO page. A tout is a more conspicuous feature within a story because it’s a full sentence with a blank line above and below it. The most relevant tout usually appears between the fourth and seventh paragraphs, and should highlight the essence of the story, broadcast, function or interview we’re promoting. Not all stories need a tout. Some contain two touts, but rarely more. Don’t include too many links in the paragraphs before and after the touts. Tout style: Read more: Erdogan’s power grip—a QuickTake on Turkey Watch more: Election influence on Fed and U.S. dollar See also: Who’s who in London lawsuit challenging Brexit Read more: Italy’s efforts to woo banks On the terminal, links and touts appear in stories in blue. On the web, links that aren’t publicly available appear next to a terminal icon. Appearing on TV and Radio

When big news breaks, our print journalists don’t just write stories—they also appear on television and radio to reach a global audience. Being effective on these platforms requires different preparation and skills. The most important thing to remember:These segments are often short, and they shouldn’t serve simply as a way to repeat your story. Rather, the on-air discussion should complement your reporting, leading with a brief summary and turning quickly to conversation

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that analyzes its importance to the audience and addresses questions that naturally flow from the topic or the latest news. The most common formats for Bloomberg TV and radio segments are unscripted, question-and-answer exchanges between the anchor and the designated guest. You may be asked to participate one-on-one, or you might find yourself on air with another Bloomberg reporter, an analyst, a trader or a company executive. When it works well, it’s a natural conversation, where the anchor’s questions mirror and anticipate those that a sophisticated viewer or listener would expect. Your role is not just to represent the written story, but also to act as an informed commentator, speaking within your means about its significance. Here are a few tips: ●●

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Preparation is key. Suggest the best questions and topics beforehand to the TV or radio teams. Be aware of how the markets have reacted in the moments before you go on air. And be sure you’ve read your competitors’ coverage as well as your own. Identify the single most important line of the reporting and lead with it. Pull out two or three story details to highlight during the conversation. Feel free to suggest that anchors, viewers and listeners read the piece for nuance and detail. And now, a bit of contradictory advice: Don’t over-prepare! That is, don’t expect to choreograph the entire appearance. The best programs feel natural and flexible, not pre-staged. Often, prepping too many points will undercut the segment and keep you from highlighting the most newsworthy threads. There is no delete key in live appearances. If you get a question you can’t answer, just say so. Don’t wing it on air. So if you’re asked how long the CEO has been in office, or how many analysts have downgraded the stock, answer with specifics only if you’re sure. It’s OK to say that’s something that we hope to learn, or that the company hasn’t yet commented on. Don’t speculate about a company’s possible bankruptcy, an executive’s likely indictment, or a commodity’s mysterious rise or fall

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if you don’t have the goods. You’ll win credibility with lines such as “The money managers I spoke to say that . . .” rather than “I think . . .” Don’t go beyond what your reporting has shown. And don’t mention stories that haven’t been published or tips you haven’t confirmed. In other words, don’t say something on air that you wouldn’t be prepared to report in a print story. Television is a visual medium. If the story could benefit from a chart, map or other visual, suggest that to the show team in advance so it can be referenced or displayed during the conversation.

Beyond Breaking News Much of Bloomberg’s reporting doesn’t come from a press release— we produce a range of features, profiles, analysis, investigative pieces and scoops of ideas. Collectively, this work is sometimes referred to as enterprise reporting. It starts with what people and companies declare publicly and turns up things they don’t want the world to know, or, sometimes, that they don’t know themselves. It tunnels around press conferences and public relations messaging to get to the how and why—two small words that sound simple but often are not. If you’re going to pursue a longer-term project, get ready to send (and wait for) open-records requests, to spend days with someone you don’t like very much, to rub your eyes as you pore over mounds of corporate filings or court documents, or to construct family trees to figure out who owns what. Prepare yourself, also, for the wonderful, powerful journalism that can lead to revealing stories like these: ●●

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After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax haven for rich foreigners. Western-produced surveillance technology is being used by Bahrain’s government to silence political dissidents. The 72-story Trump Building at 40 Wall Street has housed frauds, thieves, boiler rooms and penny stock schemers since Donald

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Trump took it over in 1995 in what may be the best deal of his career. Families living in the shadows of an Indian state-run uranium mining operation have been tormented by a mystery: What’s causing the wasting diseases that are killing so many of their children?

The best reporting doesn’t come down from a misty mountaintop or an endless conference call. It is something that may already be in your notebook. It is a question that keeps popping up as you work your beat: a person your readers should know better but who remains a blank slate; a fact that’s taken at face value but that never squares with your reporting; a counterintuitive theory that can challenge conventional wisdom. Stories like these can take weeks or months to pull together, but it’s important to remember there’s value to stories with a quicker turnaround as well. Here’s an example of an off-the-news piece after Samsung Electronics Co. said in October 2016 that it would stop producing its Galaxy Note 7 phones: Death of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Set to Hurt Vietnam Exports The fallout from Samsung Electronics Co.’s dramatic move to end production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone is set to spread to Vietnam, hurting an economy already hit by drought and lower oil prices.

Here are some tips to consider: First, you need to have a question

Before asking your editor to give you time for the story, be honest with yourself: Is the subject big enough and sufficiently compelling to warrant the time? Have others been over the same ground before? Is your premise fresh or surprising? What is the best possible story that could come from this effort? Keep in mind that you work for Bloomberg. So, does this story tell the reader something new about the way a particular industry operates? Does it illuminate an intersection of political power and commerce? Does it give us another building block to understand how the world works?

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You don’t need to have an answer immediately. One Bloomberg reporter in the New York office wanted to know more about how U.S. companies were relocating overseas after reading a colleague’s story draft. He reported an initial piece in January 2014 and then turned to other subjects. His curiosity was later rekindled, however, by a cocktail party conversation about M&A inversions. He and his editor talked it over. The reporter began to explore one facet and then another. By the time he was done at the end of 2014, he had written or co-written more than a dozen stories stacked with investigative, narrative, explanatory and data-visualization approaches to the issue. It paid off: The stories won Bloomberg its first Pulitzer Prize. Here’s the top of one story from that series: I Hear America Singing ‘Never Pay Taxes’: The Inversion Operetta The only operetta ever written about Subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code made its debut on a rainy Sunday evening in May 1990, in a Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park. In bow ties and spring blazers, partners of the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell dined on lobster prepared by a Milanese chef. Then everyone gathered around a piano, and a pair of professional opera singers, joined by the few Davis Polk men who could carry a tune, performed what sounded like a collaboration of Gilbert & Sullivan and Ernst & Young.

A helpful way of working through your initial questions is to do some reporting. Pitch a short-range piece on the subject and see what you find. Put together all the documents you can get, from transcripts of your initial interviews to lists of the people and things you need to find. Mine the Bloomberg Terminal for every bit of information you can discover about companies or transactions involved. Don’t be afraid to reach out to colleagues or the training team to find functions that match what you’re looking for. Another Bloomberg reporter wrote a story in January 2015 that examined the expanding military and diplomatic ambitions of the

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United Arab Emirates. After naming the crown prince of Abu Dhabi as the driving force of that momentum, the reporter realized that no one had written a meaningful profile of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. She compiled a list of people who had served in diplomatic, military and intelligence circles in the Gulf dating back to the 1980s and then built a spreadsheet to record who she had reached and what they had said. After 10 months of pursuit (and while juggling hundreds of other items and stories), she produced a fascinating profile that was nuanced and compelling—the story of an immensely powerful and important man packed with details about his life and ambition. If you’re feeling solid, call your editor

Be ready to sell your idea with the facts that you know and the possibilities of the reporting you propose. Be open to brainstorming about other approaches. If you get a green light, write a pitch. Approaches vary, but it’s a good rule to include both your “elevator pitch”—what you’d say quickly if you were selling the idea to the boss before she steps off the elevator—and a “movie pitch,” which spells out the characters, the sweep of the story, the big idea and what you estimate it will cost in time and travel. (See more on writing pitches in the next section.) But bear this in mind: Over the course of your career, you want to be the reporter who over-delivers, not over-promises. Don’t ask for a signoff on a story pitch that rests on access that you’re not confident of, or on a premise you haven’t explored. If you get a no, and if you still feel the story could be great, then there’s no harm in keeping the file going.You never know when a news event, a new angle or a new boss could revive interest in the subject. Don’t forget lessons from colleagues who have done this before  ●●

Be hyper-organized with your information. Type up your notes regularly. It’s a great way to keep track of what you have, and it means you won’t have to rummage through a stack of notebooks when it’s time to write. Keep lists of people you still need

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to interview and logs of your attempts to contact them. Have a central file of everything you collect. Stay organized throughout; this will save you headaches later. Be hyper-prepared for interviews. The conversations are likely to be more complicated and, possibly, more contentious than those for straight-news stories. Go into them with a clear sense of how much time the person has and a list of questions, in order of importance. This is critical for stories that will be vetted by our newsroom lawyers and standards editors. Both will ask whether you gave the subjects of the story enough time to respond and whether you were transparent about what you were seeking. This might be the only chance you get, and you don’t want the clock to run out while you’re still asking about a knickknack on an executive’s desk. And being prepared gives you something to keep the rhythm of the conversation going. Is the atmosphere getting hostile or weird? Just keep moving down your list. It’s a good idea to record interviews as long as your subjects are aware they’re being recorded. Then transcribe the interviews, quickly. This makes writing the story much easier. It also, crucially, gives you a chance to pick up on anything you missed during the first go-around. Do you admire those wonderful details that make others’ narrative stories sing? That’s not writing. It’s reporting. If you want to move past the single anecdote that anchors a typical piece, you need a lot of connective tissue. In addition to noting everything that catches your eye, use your phone camera. Quick snapshots of an office or a factory will give you time later to count the number of floors in the building, estimate how many inches high the case file was, or check that you had the color of the car right. Your story might call for close, multi-byline collaboration across teams. One Bloomberg reporter had covered sports for years from Bloomberg’s Rio de Janeiro office and understood soccer and its governing body, FIFA, as well as anyone. When editors at Bloomberg Businessweek decided to take a deep look at the sport, the reporter teamed up with colleagues from the Projects

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and Investigations team. For months, the Rio reporter shared his knowledge about a world that few outsiders understood, and he shared access to sources he had spent years cultivating. It was a delicate scenario. But it worked beautifully, not only as a magazine piece but as a first step in ongoing coverage of the FIFA scandal, one of the biggest stories of the year. When your story is done, and you’ve gone through the rigorous edits, print out the whole thing and carry it to a quiet place. Then take a pencil and go over every word. Make sure you can source everything to your notes or files. If you can’t, circle it. When you’re done, dig up the sources for circled items. If you can’t back them up, take them out. Yes, this is laborious. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Pitching Your Story From time to time, reporters have to act like salespeople. They have to persuade someone to buy their product. In the newsroom, the “someone” is an editor and the “product” is the story idea. That means the reporter has to figure out the most convincing pitch that fits the story. A well-done pitch, typically used for longer-term stories, reassures and intrigues an editor. It indicates that the reporter has researched the story, developed an original and interesting hypothesis and found compelling characters. A pitch also helps a reporter and editor focus on what the story is really about and can prevent misunderstandings after it’s filed. Here are some basic rules: ●●

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Do the reporting first. Don’t send your editor an untested theory or unconfirmed tip. Keep it tight. Longer pitches suggest that the writer is hoping that the editors will stumble on something, somewhere that happens to interest them. That almost never works. Be honest if some piece of this story has been reported before.You don’t want your editor to find out days or weeks later that your piece isn’t fresh. Perhaps you have a new angle on a well-known

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story. That’s fine, just be clear about what is new and what isn’t. And if you feel you can add a lot of value because another publication botched the story, explain how and why that’s the case. Provide a time peg. Why does the story need to run this week, or this month? If you’re an editor, be open about timing. Not all tax stories need to run in April, and not all toy stories need to run in December. If you’re pitching to a magazine, keep in mind that commitments are often made weeks or months in advance. Pitch a story, not a topic. You may be intrinsically interested in options pricing, but you have to figure out a way to make it interesting to everyone else. One of the most challenging, and fun, parts of our jobs is finding the new fact, person or angle that makes seemingly arcane stories fascinating. It is possible, of course, to make options pricing interesting to anyone, and often the best way to do it is through a person—especially if there is a lot at stake for that person. The best pitch indicates that the writer knows how to move the reader through a narrative with a beginning, middle and end. Include a headline. That will help you distill the story to one compelling point. Try to find a protagonist who can give readers a reason to stick with the story. Don’t oversell. You don’t want your story to come in as a pale imitation of your pitch. Sometimes a pitch works even if it ignores the rules. Why? Because it asks a question that an editor thinks that readers want answered. Here are a few examples of pitches that worked: The World’s Smartest Plumber Israel is a desert nation slogging through an unprecedented drought. Yet it has so much water that it’s preparing to export the surplus to its neighbors. Two reasons: massive desalinization plants, and a strict conservation ethic aided by water-saving technology. No innovator has

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been more instrumental to Israel’s smart water networks than Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu. Peleg has built omniscient plumbing software that reads sensors in the water pipes of almost every Israeli resident. He uses algorithms to identify the location of leaks, down to city blocks. The software has saved more than 17 trillion gallons of water since the company was founded in 2009, and its systems are now deployed in Europe, Australia, Latin America and the Middle East. Peleg himself is a fascinating character—a serial entrepreneur who in 2005 founded a behavioral targeting company that he sold to Microsoft. College Admissions: One More Trick Elite colleges—including the University of Pennsylvania, Duke and the University of Chicago—are extending their application deadlines for anxious high school students. It’s not because those students are facing a major emergency. Admissions experts say colleges are doing this to boost application numbers and appear more selective, which is important for their rankings. This is the latest sign of craziness in the world of college admissions, especially since many of the students who get these comeons will be getting rejection letters in April. High school students are being deluged with emails around application deadlines. The emails, which sound like a sale at Macy’s, say the students are special, smart and have a “last chance” to apply.

Research Using the Terminal There is no more authoritative tool for researching finance and business than the Bloomberg Terminal. For any journalist covering companies, economies and business people, our proprietary functions and searches offer an immense competitive advantage. If you want to know the length of tenure of board members at Japanese banks, or the last time soybean prices fell 20 percent in a month, the answers are right in front of you—assuming you know where to look. These functions enable you to uncover scoops, ask better questions and create more useful content for all Bloomberg media

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platforms. Much of our data aren’t available in this form anywhere else. Treat the terminal as a search engine that unlocks a vast financial encyclopedia. Begin by posing the basic question: What does my story need? What facts, examples and data would strengthen my narrative? Once you have a better sense of what you are looking for the terminal becomes a whole lot easier to navigate. If all else fails, on any screen hit the “Help” key for a full description. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. The terminal has thousands of functions. But a few hundred are most beneficial for Bloomberg journalists, analysts, strategists and economists. (See the Appendix for a list broken down by asset class and topic.) It’s easiest to divide the functions by asset class. Equity market reporters and editors, for example, often begin their research with WEI (world equity indexes). Government bond journalists view WB (world bond markets). Commodities reporters need GLCO (global commodity prices). And currency specialists begin with FXIP (FX information portal). Market data don’t exist in a vacuum. The financial markets are integrated and interdependent, so readers and viewers need to know how the rise or decline of one stock, bond, currency, commodity or index is affecting another. In the following market wrap, for example, the reporter wrote the first two paragraphs after researching U.S. equity, oil, gold, bond, currency and economic data. U.S. stocks fell, snapping a three-day rally as the highest American oil inventories in 86 years sent crude below $31 a barrel, fueling demand for haven assets from Treasuries to gold. Energy producers posted the biggest declines in the S&P 500 Index, with investors betting on defensive equities less tied to economic growth, such as utility and telephone stocks. The dollar strengthened after a report showed the cost of living in the U.S. excluding food and fuel increased by the most since 2011.

Terminal research takes many forms. We might hunt for a superlative, such as “the company’s stock fell to its lowest in three years,”

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by using functions including ROC (rate of change), CP (company profile), GP (line chart) or HP (historical prices). We might use the FA (financial analysis) function to find profit margins or return on common equity. We can use the RV (relative value) function to compare the revenue, price/earnings ratio or net income of a company’s competitors. Or, Bloomberg reporters and analysts can research a company’s capital structure and debt using the CAST and DDIS functions. Exclusive search tools generate more content ideas. A basic news search using NSE can generate thousands of articles from Bloomberg News and other sources. Filter your search by date, source or keyword. News searches can also be saved and used to set alerts for the next time a story is published that meets your criteria. Use Bloomberg’s news analysis tools to see which stories clients are most interested in or which companies suddenly saw a spike in news readership. The terminal is a great place to find out what you need to know about people on your beat. Our database includes profiles on more than 2.7 million people. Whether you want to find oil traders based in Singapore or U.S. mid-cap executives who made more than $5 million last year, there’s a function that can help. Use PEOP to search by role, location, education, career history; MGMT to find companies’ executives and board members; RICH to find billionaires; COUN for key politicians and central bankers in each country; and, of course, the BIO page to find news stories, career histories and contact details for someone. An example from RICH: The company is part of a network of banks spanning the U.S. and Brazil. It is controlled by Joseph Safra, Brazil’s second-richest individual, who is worth about $16.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Terminal Tip

RICH The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily listing of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, sortable by country, region, gender and industry.

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An example from PAY: Bousbib received $25.9 million in total compensation that year, more than three times the median pay given to CEOs in the company’s peer group, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The equity-screening tool, EQS, enables searches of companies by an Terminal Tip almost infinite number of categoPAY ries. Use it if you want to find, say, View the Bloomberg Pay all companies in Europe that have Index to see the highesta market value of more than 1 bilpaid executives and related lion euros and have more than 5,000 company performance. employees. The company filings search, CFS, the RES research portal and the DS document search make it possible to scrutinize annual reports, conference call transcripts, shareholder meetings and prospectuses. For merger and acquisition research, MA sifts and sorts more than 500,000 deals over the past 20 years, while IPO breaks down more than 100,000 global initial public offerings by country, industry, advisers, size and type. An example from MA: A merger between Shire and Baxalta would build on an already record year for deals among drug companies, with the tally now up to $224 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The industry is helping to drive overall acquisition activity to a record. This year is on track to narrowly surpass $3.4 trillion, the previous record set in 2007.

An example from IPO: The initial public offerings would add to the $57.5 billion of first-time share sales in greater China over the past 12 months, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Even college endowments are fair game. Use ENDO to track performance at U.S. universities. An example: Harvard University, the world’s wealthiest school, is the only one among its peers whose endowment value hasn’t returned to the peak level reached before the financial crisis.

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You can explore research produced by Bloomberg Intelligence at BI. BI publishes primers on more than 1,500 of the world’s biggest companies, accessible using the BICO function, as well as 500 on countries and thematic topics. For example, FDX US Equity BICO shows FedEx Corp.’s financial fundamentals and key topics that drive its business, supported by company and industry data. To research a company, industry, country, commodity, topic or region, type BIP and use the keyword search. Examples from BI: Merck’s fourth-quarter pharma revenue growth slowed to 2 percent from 13 percent in the same period a year earlier, and AstraZeneca’s fell by about two-thirds to 6 percent, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Australia is the largest exporter of iron ore and is poised to surpass Qatar as the biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas by 2019 as a wave of projects are brought online, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Attribute research data from the terminal with the phrases: according to data compiled by Bloomberg or data compiled by Bloomberg show. On second reference, Bloomberg data show is fine.

3 How We Write

Ernest Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, but he credited his success in fiction to his training as a young reporter at the Kansas City Star. The newspaper had “the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” he later said. “I’ve never forgotten them.” Here are some of those guidelines: ●● ●● ●● ●●

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Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Eliminate every superfluous word. Avoid the use of adjectives, especially such extravagant ones as splendid, gorgeous, grand, magnificent, etc. Both simplicity and good taste suggest home rather than residence, and lives rather than resides.

We can’t guarantee that if you follow these rules, you’ll someday find yourself in Stockholm, collecting your own Nobel Prize. But we do know that those values—clarity, precision and integrity—will serve you well at Bloomberg.  

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In the pages that follow, you’ll see how to dissect your writing into the most important components: Headlines, leads, nut paragraphs, follow-through and common lapses. Most importantly, when you sit down to write or edit a story, keep this in mind: We should strive to write in a way that is meaningful for specialists and accessible for laymen. We serve our readers best when we show respect for their time and their intelligence.

Headlines If you want people to read your story, write a compelling headline. If you want to reach the widest audience in real time, send a clear, breaking news headline. Think about it this way: In a newspaper or magazine, there are many entry points someone will see before reading a story. A good headline attracts attention, but so do photographs, pullout quotes, or even the first few paragraphs of the piece. Most Bloomberg readers—outside of the magazine audience— depend solely on the headline when deciding whether to click. A clear, powerful headline will get their interest. A boring or confusing headline won’t. The best headlines convey some combination of these factors: ●●

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News: What happened this moment or this day that we didn’t know before? Examples: There’s a major downturn in the stock market. An automaker announces it’s increasing production of its hybrid models. A prime minister loses an election. Surprise: What happened that we didn’t expect? Examples: A CFO, whose record had seemed impeccable, is indicted for fraud. A long-shot candidate wins an election. Without advance warning, two companies decide to merge. Usefulness: What will help readers make a smarter decision, invest more successfully, lead a better life? Examples: Tax-averse investors should wait to sell their mutual funds. A new and inexpensive

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therapy is especially effective for cardiac rehab patients. The real estate market in a certain country appears to be undervalued. Names: What did a prominent person say or write that will move markets or government action? Examples: The European Central Bank president gives a speech about interest rates. The highestranked analyst in the aviation industry issues research showing the sector is overpriced. The president announces his nominee for the Supreme Court. Conflict: Which companies, governments or people are facing off against each other in a high-stakes matter? Examples: Two cable companies battle for dominance in a local market. EU members disagree with the U.K. about immigration rules after the Brexit vote. Hong Kong publishers push back against new rules on censorship. Drama: What did someone say or do that makes an especially compelling story? Examples: We discover the behind-the-scenes tale of how a board decided to fire the CEO. A refugee tells the story of his family’s journey from peril to safety. An inventor wins her years-long lawsuit against a company that stole her patent.

All of our stories and headlines should have at least one of these elements, and some will have several. Indeed, if you can’t write a headline that has any of them, reconsider whether the story is worth running at all. And that brings up an important point: It’s often helpful to try to write a headline before the story is finished. That process can help the reporter and editor determine the essential point of the story, and can also indicate what should be trimmed. Headlines should be clear, concise and compelling. That means ensuring that, whenever possible, they include names of prominent companies and people, are written with active rather than passive verbs, and convey the key point. It doesn’t mean headlines have to be cute, include puns or wordplay, or require knowledge of a language other than American English.

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Avoid lapsing into lazy, overused tricks. Our news feeds have at times become clogged with headlines that begin with, “Meet the Man Who . . .” or “Size Matters: . . .” or “Welcome to . . .” Each segment of Bloomberg Editorial has different ways of doing headlines. Here are some examples of how they work: Bloomberg News Headlines

Bloomberg News headlines face special qualifications. They must adhere to a character count and are usually followed by two deck headlines (more on that later). We’ve tested stories to learn which get more readership. Here are examples of headlines that were rewritten and drew much more traffic in the new versions: OLD: Puma’s Auerbach Gained on Pfizer’s Early Retreat on Breast Drug NEW: Long-Shot Cancer Drug Now Promises a Fortune, But Not for Pfizer

Alan Auerbach, Puma’s CEO, wasn’t a particularly well-known executive, so the old headline falters right away. The first words of the revised version carry a punch, and the headline also sets up the contrast with Pfizer. OLD: Calpers’s Hedge-Fund Exit Stemmed From Challenge to Expand Assets NEW: Calpers Is Done With Hedge Funds; Paid $135 Million in Fees for 7% Return

The subject of the original headline is four cumbersome words. The rewritten version is more direct and includes important numbers for context. OLD: Islamic State Prompts Biggest U.S.-Arab Coalition Since 1991 NEW: Biggest U.S.-Arab Bloc Since 1991 Attacks Islamic Militants

A headline carries much more impact when we use a powerful verb like “attacks” rather than “prompts.” OLD: China’s Hungry Infants in Rinehart’s Sights in Baby-Formula Push NEW: Asia’s Richest Woman Moves From Iron Ore to Infant Formula

The old version has no verb, and also, not many readers know who Gina Rinehart is. But everyone can understand “Asia’s richest woman.”

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Deck Headlines

Bloomberg News headlines also include decks—that is, two lines of additional display type below the headline. They’re slightly shorter than the main head, and are written in sentence rather than headline case. Deck headlines serve two important and complementary purposes. For readers in a hurry, the three headlines can tell them most or all they need to know; this is also important on the web and on mobile devices, where space and time are at a premium. For other readers, the new headlines provide additional hooks, enticing them to delve into a story they otherwise might have skimmed or ignored. They also enable us to make our headlines clearer, without gumming them up with extraneous numbers or details. Some core guidelines on deck headlines: ●●

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Don’t bother with them on breaking stories. It’s better to get the first version or two out as quickly as possible. Use decks for stories longer than 200 to 250 words. Write two deck headlines, not just one. Here are some examples of good decks: VW Scandal Deepens as Emissions Woes Spread to Gasoline Cars •• Company adds about 2 billion euros to possible economic risk •• VW already faced recall for 11 million diesel cars worldwide

The decks give readers key information on the cost to Volkswagen AG as well as the number of cars involved. U.S. Stocks Sink as Oil Breaks $40; Treasuries Drop on Rate Bets •• Energy shares drive losses ahead of Friday’s OPEC meeting •• Yellen speech, ADP data begin crucial three days for markets

Readers use the decks to learn which shares are causing the downturn, and also get forward-looking details about OPEC,Yellen and ADP. Blankfein’s Decade Ending With a Thud on a Humbled Wall Street •• Goldman posts worst first-quarter revenue of CEO’s tenure •• Firm’s 6.4% return on equity falls below cost of capital

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The main headline neatly combines the Goldman CEO’s woes with broader issues in the financial sector.The decks provide the detail. Subheadlines

The purpose of a subheadline, or subhead, is visual: to break up a block of type so it’s easier on the eye. In the absence of a chart or photo, subheads appear in Bloomberg Terminal stories on each full screen of text except for the first screen, with the byline, and the last screen, with the reporter and editor contact information. Use one subhead for each screen. Subheads should be two words. Follow the style for story headlines, such as using single quotation marks around direct quotes. The subhead should refer to information in the paragraphs that immediately follow. It should be a label or express a complete thought. Avoid phrases such as Well Above that don’t make sense on their own. If the paragraph after the subhead refers to a pending stock sale, for instance, Pending Sale will do just fine. Here’s how a subhead would appear in text: Maybe the most surprising thing about the company’s history is that it has lasted this long, said Steve Ettlinger, the New York-based author of “Twinkie, Deconstructed.” ‘Popular Pull’ Twinkies’ moisture comes from oil, their vitamins are fermented or created out of petroleum, and the main ingredient in the cream is probably an emulsifier called Polysorbate 60, Ettlinger said. “They have a popular pull on us as Americans,” Ettlinger said. “They are cute. They are blonde. They are small. They are very sweet.”

In breaking news stories, the subhead’s content is less important than its placement, especially under deadline pressure. In feature stories, use the luxury of extra time to compose subheads that entice the reader to continue through the story. Standalone Headlines

Nothing is more crucial to the success of Bloomberg Editorial than breaking news. Most often, that’s first published with standalone

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or “flash” headlines that alert our audience to developments that might move markets. These headlines are the first word on scoops, interviews and data releases, which come from trusted sources. They give our readers relevant, actionable and often exclusive information. Success is measured in seconds. But speed doesn’t matter if we get something wrong. So don’t let deadline pressure force an error. Standalone headlines differ from story headlines in several ways. They are written all in capital letters and don’t need to fill an entire line. We publish as many as required to flush out the material facts. Over-headlining can overwhelm client monitors and bury other content, undermining our successes in speed. Each headline must make sense on its own, as readers may read only one or two. The headlines appear only on the terminal. We don’t post them on our website or on social media. We have more leeway to use abbreviations in standalone headlines due to length constraints. Still, they conform to general style and must be clear to the reader. Hot Headlines

The most important news is sent as “red” or “hot” headlines, which trigger immediate alerts for clients. All hot headlines require two editors to review both the source as well as the headline being published. U.S. GDP ROSE 1.4% IN FOURTH QUARTER, REVISED FROM 1% GAIN MAGNITUDE 8.2 QUAKE 763 MILES SW OF KUALA LUMPUR: PT TSUNAMI OSBORNE SAYS U.K. TO CUT CORPORATION TAX TO 17% BY APRIL 2020 “Said To” Headlines

When we publish news citing sources we can’t name, we use “is said to” in the headline. Some users look for those words when seeking breaking news. EGYPT IS SAID TO SEEK IMF LOAN TALKS, GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL SAYS VIACOM IS SAID TO CONSIDER THREE INTERNAL CANDIDATES FOR CEO

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Third-Party Sources

When other reliable media organizations break news essential to our clients, we name the source at the end of the headline, after a colon. CHINA REMOVES CSRC HEAD XIAO GANG FROM POST: XINHUA SHELL HIRES LAZARD TO ADVISE ON ASSET SALE: REUTERS Headline Corrections

If we make a factual error, we must immediately publish a correction before removing the incorrect headline. CORRECT: VALE SAYS PROSECUTOR SEEKS BRL2B SAMARCO DAM DAMAGES CORRECT: FEB. SUPPLY OF NEW U.S. HOMES UNCHANGED AT 5.6 MONTHS Avoiding Headline Errors

You can ensure accuracy by: ●●

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Preparing and editing headlines for scheduled events in advance to avert last-minute scrambles. Using the safeguards in Bloomberg’s headline-sending software to prevent early release. Double-checking numbers and the spelling of names and companies. Rereading the headline and lead one last time before sending the headline and accompanying story. Having more than one person look at copy before publication.

First Word Headlines

First Word occupies a different space from either standard news stories or standalone headlines. First Word items are written for clients—largely traders and money managers—who need actionable information quickly, with context.  First Word items are written as a series of bullet points rather than paragraphs, and usually serve as the first versions of stories. They can also be standalone pieces for market professionals who don’t have time to read long-form prose.

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Here’s an example of an effective First Word headline and item: General Mills Reaffirms Yr Views After 3Q EPS Beats, Rev. Trails General Mills reiterates FY16 adj. EPS forecast for low singledigit growth (constant currency), reflecting impact of Green Giant divestiture. •• Sees 8c headwind from FX, saw 9c •• Still sees FY16 net sales in constant currency down at low single-

digit rate •• On March 16, GIS sold General Mills de Venezuela CA subsidiary to 3rd party, exited business in Venezuela; GIS sees noncash charge ~$35m pretax in 4Q; deal not expected to have material impact on ongoing financial results •• 3Q adj. EPS 65c, est. 62c (range 60c–65c) •• 3Q net sales $4.0b, est. $4.08b (range $4.0b–$4.16b)

Note that the headline uses abbreviations like “Rev.” that we wouldn’t use in a narrative story. But the First Word audience knows the shorter version for “revenue.” And the terminology is congruent with the rest of the story, with its language designed for this specialized audience. Here are some guidelines for all types of headlines, as applied to First Word examples: ●●

Terminal Tip

FIRS See Bloomberg First Word stories written for our terminal audience and organized by asset classes.

When the source is a high-profile person or company, let readers know quickly. For example: PBOC’s Zhou Says Direct Financing Can Help Restructuring

The governor of the People’s Bank of China is well known to our First Word readers.

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In contrast: Brazil Impeachment Voting Should Take 3 Days, House Chief Says

We don’t cite the name of the then-speaker, Eduardo Cunha, since few readers would know him as the head of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies. ●●

Identifying information is important, especially for readers in a hurry. This headline leaves too much to the imagination. Is the official a key policy maker or someone on the periphery? ECB Official: May Cut Rates Further If Inflation Remains Weak

This headline tells readers much more about who’s behind the statement: Lithuania Central Banker: ECB May Cut Again if Prices Weak ●●

Context is critical. There’s nothing wrong with this headline: Saudi Economy to Grow 3.5% This Yr, IMF Says

But this one lets readers know important context: Saudi Economy to Grow 3.5% This Yr, Same as 2014, IMF Says ●●

Don’t hit readers with a wall of numbers. This headline is hard to parse: Rite Aid Now Sees FY Rev. $30.8b–$31.1b, Saw $30.7b–$31.2b

This revision conveys the key information, and interested clients can read bullet points for more detail: Rite Aid Cuts FY Views on Sales Trends, Expected Amortization ●●

The best headlines push the story forward. This headline simply summarizes the numbers: RESEARCH ROUNDUP: U.S. Housing Thrives, Factories Falter

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This revision tells you why the numbers will matter: RESEARCH ROUNDUP: Two-Speed U.S. Economy Pressures USD, Challenges Fed ●●

Don’t let headlines and leads echo each other. The headline should set up the First Word item, and the lead should move it forward, not repeat information clients already know. Here’s a good example of the lead picking up where the headline left off: Toyobo Gains; Profit Growth Has ‘Strong Prospects’: SMBC Nikko Toyobo rises as much as 6.6%, highest intraday since Dec. 8, on 1.3x 3-month avg volume after SMBC Nikko raises price target to 240 yen from 210 yen.

Web Headlines

The digital audience is different from that of the terminal, and so our headlines may differ as well. Most Bloomberg.com readers have less financial expertise than the terminal audience, and much of our traffic comes from other websites or social media. Web editors have fewer constraints in writing headlines. There is no rigid character count, for example, and decks can vary in number and length. The style is often more conversational or colloquial. Many digital stories are accompanied by art or video frames, and headlines must take into account those elements as well. Simply put, if someone asks you what your story is about, the first sentence of your answer often works as a strong headline. It’s conversational, to the point and accessible to a broad audience. Here are some examples of how digital editors rewrote terminal headlines: Terminal: Citi’s Money-Laundering Failures Revealed in Secret FDIC Report Web: Inside the Money Laundering Scheme That Citi Ignored for Years Terminal: Oil Bets Rise to Record as Speculators Battle Over Market Course Web: A Record Number of Investors Are Piling Into Oil Terminal: Biggest Roadblock for Driverless Cars Could Be Old Man Winter Web: Driverless Cars Also Struggle in the Snow

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Leads & Nut Paragraphs Leads

A good lead accomplishes many things. It conveys the most critical information, which is especially important for readers in a hurry. It sets the tone for the story, whether direct, anecdotal or whimsical. It tells the audience that they’re about to read something urgent, something surprising, something useful, or something counterintuitive. It gives readers a reason to keep moving through your story, while other headlines beckon. Even Plato, who never covered a plane crash or a market rout, told his disciples, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Or as the writer Stephen King said, “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” But there are risks. A lead should never overpromise what the story will deliver. It is a bad stage for painful clichés or obvious statements of fact. Nor should it become a vehicle for reporters who yearn to show readers that they, too, can write as powerfully as Tolstoy or as cleverly as Twain. The tone and content of the lead must fit the story. If you’re writing the first take on a fatal industrial accident, you needn’t start with the company’s stock price. If you’re doing a richly reported profile of a commodities trader, you can have a longer lead-in. Always keep in mind, though, that your stories are increasingly being read on small screens, where long blocks of type can deter even your most committed followers. The best leads are deceivingly hard to write. It is common for a reporter to spend half as much time on the lead as on the remainder of the story. Once the lead is set, the rest often follows naturally. Before you begin writing, ask yourself a few questions. What is the most important thing for the reader to know? Is there a person, a fact or a statistic that I should highlight? Is there extraneous stuff that I can delete, or save for later? What is the conflict or tension? How can I draw the reader into the entire story? There are several ways to handle this task.

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Lead with the news

The most common, and often the most useful, is the straight news lead. It conveys the most important facts as tightly as possible. At the same time, it tells readers an important fact or two to highlight what’s new, unexpected or essential. Here are some examples of smartly written straight news leads, with a few words about why they work: David Einhorn’s main hedge fund at Greenlight Capital fell 5.2 percent in November and is poised for only its second losing year in almost two decades.

A clear, declarative sentence that conveys the news and provides important context about how rare Einhorn’s loss was. Barclays Plc Chairman John McFarlane, barely two months into the job, ousted Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins and pledged to tackle a “cumbersome and bureaucratic” bank.

This lead benefits from a strong active verb (“ousted”), along with excellent context on the timing and rationale behind this surprise move.

Terminal Tip

TOP View top business and general stories, commentary, analysis and the Chart of the Hour, selected by Bloomberg editors in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Oil supplies in Iraq and Russia surged to the highest level in decades, signaling no respite from the glut that has pushed crude prices to their lowest in five years.

Note the effective use of two superlatives—highest and lowest—to give readers a sense of the significance of that day’s news. Lead with a trend

Sometimes you’ll write a story that goes beyond a breaking news event and captures something that has been going on for some time. For this type of lead to work, you have to show your readers that

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you have a new and interesting insight, fact or quote to illustrate your theme. Venezuelans who already must line up for hours to buy chicken, sugar, medicines and other basic products in short supply now face a new indignity: Condoms are hard to find and nearly impossible to afford.

It wasn’t a surprise that times are tough in Venezuela, but this lead provides a fresh and compelling way into the story. Even in the $100 trillion market for bonds worldwide, one of the most persistent dilemmas facing potential buyers is a dearth of supply.

This lead gives readers an immediate sense of the market’s size, as well as a clear explanation of the problem at hand. Sometimes it just feels good to be bad. After years of recessionimposed restraint, American consumers have more cash in their pockets, and some of it is going to our favorite guilty pleasures.

A resurgent economy is starting to change consumers’ spending habits, and this lead sets the tone succinctly. Lead with a person

This is a tempting technique, and one that works in certain circumstances. The person you highlight should be a compelling character who is engaged in something more dramatic than, say, the CEO who “leans back in her chair” or the trader who “stroked his chin as the markets fell.” Moreover, the person must be indicative of the story’s theme, not contrary to it. Some fine examples: At about 9 a.m. each day, Sudha Devi walks up to a gated house in India’s capital, removes her shoes and heads inside. She’s under strict orders: Don’t touch anything but the toilet.

This lead immediately enables the reader to form a mental picture of Devi and her daily struggles.

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There’s the Vladimir Putin who patted President Barack Obama on the back, and who wrapped a shawl around the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping to protect her from the cold. And then there’s the Putin who greeted his hosts at this weekend’s summit of global leaders in Brisbane by parking warships off the Australian coast.

You immediately understand the two faces of Putin, and why he represents such a challenge to other countries. As a baby-faced entrepreneur, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman once symbolized the tech industry’s meteoric meltdown. Just years out of Harvard College and a stint at Goldman Sachs, he launched an Internet company only to see it collapse three years later. Today, he finds himself in a South American maximum-security prison, begging to return to the U.S to face securities fraud charges that could send him to an American jail cell for as long as 20 years.

How did Tuzman fall so far so fast? This lead makes a strong case for reading further. Lead with a short anecdote

This section needs a flashing CAUTION sign. Journalists tend to overuse anecdotal leads. The problem: Either the anecdote isn’t especially compelling, or the characters in the anecdote aren’t. And if the anecdote is a long tale, the reader may simply give up. These leads work best when they draw the reader into the story with a short anecdote that illustrates and personalizes the larger issues the reporter wants to portray. It’s also important that, somewhere in the story, we return to the person in the anecdotal lead. We frustrate readers when we tantalize them with an opening anecdote and then never come back to the main character. Here’s one example of an anecdotal lead: Ada Tsang remembers the ground shaking and then trying to zip up a tent flap before the roaring ocean of snow overtook her.

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Ice and rocks flew into her face and Tsang, a high-school teacher from Hong Kong, was slammed to the ground. “Everyone just yelled, ‘Run! Run!’” she recalled as she recovered in a Kathmandu hospital, her face cut and swollen and her head bandaged all around.

And here’s another one: Sao Paulo’s stop-and-go traffic costs Luiz Fernando Lucas more than time when he drives into South America’s biggest city on business. In March, Lucas had to halt production at his cleaning products factory for two weeks after he missed a meeting with the only supplier who could keep his plant running. Another time, a customer tired of waiting and canceled their rendezvous, costing Lucas $21,800 in sales. “I can’t tell how many business opportunities and time I have lost because of this terrible traffic,” said Lucas, 32. Lead with a twist

These are among the most perilous leads. They’re usually short (which is good), and they include a turn of the phrase to make the reader think, “What?!” The problem is, such leads have the volatility of nitroglycerin. Handled well, they can be used for the good, but just as often, they explode and leave a mess. If you try this, be sure you’re not reaching too far and that your point comes through. Read it to a colleague or two to make sure that others also understand your genius. Here are some successful examples: •• Let’s face it. The grapefruit is cumbersome and often sour. Also, it

can kill you. •• Chilean thieves have a new way of stealing cash from ATMs: They blow them up. •• Next time you’re stuck on a long-haul flight in a packed, economy-class cabin, being ignored by a frazzled flight attendant, spare a thought for the passengers on a recent flight from Melbourne to Chongqing in China. They were cows.

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•• Brazil will suffer its deepest two-year recession in more than a cen-

tury while its inflation rate will tumble, according to analysts’ forecasts. If recent history is any guide, those projections may actually be too rosy. Nut Paragraphs

A great lead is only the beginning.You need to tell readers not just what happened, but what it means, what’s at stake and why they should care. That’s where the nut graph comes in. A company just reported great earnings. That’s important, but what does this mean for other companies in the sector, for the economy, for investors? A country just announced new unemployment numbers. What does that say about its leaders’ policies or political futures, or how its exports are faring against competing countries? Put some thought into this. Don’t insert random background from Bloomberg archives. Don’t slap together a few numbers. The nut graph should look forward, not backward. On deadline, this is tough to do. Indeed, if you’re juggling a lot of breaking developments in your story, don’t worry about it right away. But with more time and perspective, you can write nut graphs that keep readers intrigued and engaged. Moreover, a nut graph on a feature story—particularly one that has an anecdotal lead—frames the rest of the narrative for readers, giving them a map of where you plan to take them. Start by asking these questions: ●● ●● ●● ●●

What’s at stake? Who will be hurt, and who will benefit? Where does this company or person go from here? What is the broader lesson or message?

In this example (nut graph is bold-faced), we provide broader context for the superlatives and also report that the fixed-income trading sector had its worst year since 2008: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp., two of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, plan to lean on their periodic culls

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of low performers this year to rein in costs as a market rout pressures returns. Goldman Sachs will eliminate more than 5 percent of traders and salespeople in its fixed-income business, cutting See a company’s announced job cuts, including links to those operations more deeply than the news stories. annual companywide sweep normally used to make way for new hires, a person briefed on the matter said. Bank of America will dismiss about 150 trading and investment-banking employees next week, people familiar with its decision said. Terminal Tip

LOSS

This year’s global market turmoil, including the worst start ever for U.S. stocks, is putting new pressure on Wall Street to pare operations as clients pull back and corporations refrain from selling some types of securities. It comes as investment banks already were struggling to overhaul fixed-income units amid stiffer capital rules and a trading slump. Last year was the worst for fixedincome trading since 2008, according to research firm Coalition Development Ltd.

In the next example, we show readers that Japanese central bankers are following the lead of Europeans, and that the decision came only days after the bank governor had said this wasn’t likely: Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda sprung another surprise on investors Friday, adopting a negative interest-rate strategy to spur banks to lend in the face of a weakening economy. The move to penalize a portion of banks’ reserves complements the BOJ’s record asset-purchase program, including $666 billion a year in government-bond purchases. By a 5–4 vote, Kuroda led his colleagues to introduce a rate of minus 0.1 percent on certain excess holdings of cash. Long a pioneer in adopting unorthodox policies to tackle deflation and revive economic growth, the BOJ is now taking a page out of European policy makers’ playbooks in the goal of stoking inflation. The yen tumbled after the announcement, which came after Kuroda just last week rejected the idea of negative rates.

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And in this example, the third paragraph shows how the anecdote that begins the story illustrates and relates to its theme: Geraldine Damiani Brezler took out a $5,000 student loan in the late 1960s to study at the State University of New York. She became a nurse, got married, bought a house and repaid the debt in less than three years. Today, her son, David, 38, owes about $85,000 in loans for a master’s degree in education at New York University. He can’t find fulltime work, lives with his parents in White Plains, New York, and has deferred paying his debt for three years. The financial-aid odyssey of two generations of Brezlers tracks the history of U.S. student loans, which, like the home mortgage, helped define the American dream. In the early years, the loan program let ambitious teens take on a small debt that they could pay off with a lifetime of higher earnings. Now, the $1 trillion in outstanding student debt has become a drag on the economic recovery, a flashpoint in the presidential election and a threat to the egalitarian ideals of U.S. higher education. The Four-Paragraph Lead

One effective way of providing busy readers with the essentials of any event in 250 words or less is what Matt Winkler calls the fourparagraph lead. This story structure consists of a compelling lead and a nut paragraph, as noted in the previous pages, along with a key quotation and a paragraph of supporting details. The idea is similar to what many journalism students learn as the inverted pyramid way of writing, which stresses the importance of explaining the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of a story at the top, followed by lower-priority information in subsequent paragraphs. At Bloomberg, the first four paragraphs also seek to highlight the So What, asking what’s at stake for investors, companies, governments and others affected by an event. The four-paragraph lead begins with a Theme consisting of two elements: the What and Why of an event, or the What and So What. The theme should also explain whether the news is a surprise, and it should convey a sense of direction so that readers know immediately whether the news is good or bad.

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The remaining three elements can appear in any order: Details. These are pieces of information that back up the theme or provide essential facts, such as data from an economic report or company financial statement, or the performance of a benchmark security or index. Nut paragraph. This explains why people should care about a story even if they don’t have a direct relationship to its subject. It provides perspective that makes the story easy to understand and interesting to a wider range of readers. Quotation. This is a statement in plain English from an authority who provides support for the theme. When considering what to use, ask yourself: Is this quote from someone in the action or someone on the periphery? Is this person saying something that I couldn’t just write myself or show more convincingly with data? A quote should improve the story, rather than slow down the reader. The first four paragraphs should tell readers how we know what we know. They should also contain an appropriate size and scope that defines the subject of the story. What makes the company, person, country or event unique? What makes it unique to this particular story today? Why are we writing this story now? Here’s one example: Detroit Slid From Industrial Might to Bankruptcy as City Emptied

(The name and tension attract readers.) Detroit, the cradle of the automobile assembly line and a symbol of industrial might, filed the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy after decades of decline left it too poor to pay billions of dollars owed to bondholders, retired cops and current city workers.

(Includes the what, why and so what.) “I know many will see this as a low point in the city’s history,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, said in a letter yesterday authorizing the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit. “Without this decision, the city’s condition would only worsen.”

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(The voice is that of the protagonist. In other cases, it may be appropriate to quote a fund manager or someone with something at stake.) Michigan’s largest city joins Jefferson County, Alabama, and the California cities of San Bernardino and Stockton in bankruptcy. The filing shattered the presumption of many bondholders that local governments, eager to continue borrowing at reasonable rates, would do whatever it took, including raise taxes, to come up with the money to meet bond obligations. Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager, said the debt is $18 billion.

(The context fits today’s news with the bigger picture.) While under court protection, Detroit can stop paying some debts, is temporarily immune from most lawsuits and may be able to ask a judge to cancel contracts, including union agreements. Under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the first step is likely to be a court fight over whether the city was entitled to bankruptcy protection, a challenge that would ask if the city was truly insolvent and it had no alternative to filing.

(Includes the supporting details, more of the why and background that any reader needs to know before going further.) Accuracy, attribution and speed are essential. Beyond that, be flexible. Be prepared to rework your lead, move details lower in the story or jettison a quote if it doesn’t support the theme. When a nut paragraph doesn’t work, don’t force it. And don’t forget to rewrite your headline when the story changes. Write as if you’re explaining the story to a friend, in simple, short prose that any reader, listener or viewer can immediately understand.

The Whole Story Few things are more daunting than piles of notebooks filled with quotes, facts and tidbits of color, waiting to be assembled into a compelling narrative. Many writers, experienced and amateur, freeze at the prospect. Journalists have their own techniques for handling this. Some tack notes on walls to see if the pieces fit into a coherent tale. Others

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read through their notes, then push them aside and start writing a structure, leaving it until later to fill in the exact details. Try a few methods until you come up with something that works for you. As always, stay in close touch with your editors to find out what length they have in mind, what your story’s tone should be, what will make the most compelling beginning, middle and end. And remember that the best writing won’t hide incomplete reporting. If you don’t have the details, you don’t have the story. No book can give you a foolproof guide for this process. But by examining a terrific Bloomberg story, you’ll see how others have handled this challenge. Here’s the headline: Hot Mess: How Goldman Sachs Lost $1.2 Billion of Libya’s Money

From the short opening sentence, note how the reporters entice you to read on. Moammar Qaddafi’s Libya was a miserable place for a business trip.

The second and third paragraphs then set the scene, addressing the big-picture Who, What, When, Where and Why of the story through vivid anecdotes. We meet the protagonist and learn details about him that add to the story’s credibility and richness. In 2008, a few years after renouncing its nuclear and chemical weapons program, the desert nation remained a menacing and ugly place, with cratered highways, awful restaurants with no booze, and Qaddafi’s leathery visage everywhere, staring balefully down from billboards. The dreary capital, Tripoli, sat at the edge of the Sahara, in the least barren sliver of a country defined in the West by dictatorship, terrorism, and billions of dollars’ worth of oil. Goldman Sachs’s Youssef Kabbaj was one of the few that enjoyed the commute. A securities salesman based out of the bank’s London headquarters, Kabbaj found that Libya reminded him of his native Morocco, and he considered the ruins in Tripoli’s old quarter enchanting. The city had a single decent hotel, the Corinthia, a crescent hulk the color of sand, and that year Kabbaj was such a frequent guest that he stored a rack of pressed suits there at all times. With slick black hair, round cheeks, and a mischievous smile, he was fluent in English, French, Arabic, and the language of international finance.

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OK, but where’s this all leading? The fourth paragraph ties together the main elements of the story so far: Goldman Sachs, Libya and money (in this case, the nation’s new sovereign wealth fund). This is where we learn what’s at stake and see a theme start to emerge. Qaddafi’s peaceful turn had reopened Libya to Western banking for the first time in two decades. Its Terminal Tip $60 billion in oil wealth, no longer ECST dammed up by international sancView world economic tions, was ready to flood into the statistics—from business market, as directed by the Libyan conditions and consumer confidence to housing, Investment Authority, Qaddafi’s inflation and retail sales. brand-new sovereign wealth fund. With his North African pedigree, Kabbaj had been one of the first at Goldman to spot the opportunity. The LIA had become his biggest client, transforming him in a year from rookie salesman into possibly the No. 1 rainmaker at the world’s most profitable investment bank. He was 31 years old.

The story is just getting started, and the reporters have successfully pulled the reader into the narrative. The drama unfolds in the paragraphs that follow and we learn how a series of opaque derivatives transactions engineered by an ambitious junior banker eventually descend into a tangled, costly scandal. There’s also a bigger idea woven into this saga: How Wall Street’s push for deals on the cusp of the financial crisis collided with Libya’s ambitions as an emerging economy. The in-depth reporting, mined from court evidence, witness testimony, and interviews with people Terminal Tip involved in the transactions, turns BKMK a dry examination of international Create bookmarks for stories finance into a riveting narrative. and view recently read content. Complicated financial concepts are explained in conversational language

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a broad audience can grasp. Here’s how the reporters deconstruct the bank’s jargon. It was a complex derivatives deal, or as Goldman Sachs described it later, “a cash-settled forward purchase agreement for Citigroup shares with downside protection in the form of a put option at the same price as the forward.” More simply, if Citi shares rose, as the LIA was betting, the fund stood to gain many times its initial investment. If the shares fell by a certain amount, the fund could lose everything. The structure was potentially more lucrative than a conventional purchase of equity and also significantly riskier—while resulting in far higher profits for Goldman.

We’ll highlight three important areas that you should consider when thinking about how to sustain a narrative: Quotes, details and numbers. Quotes

Strong quotes are what bring your story to life and engage the reader. Disperse them through your narrative. Don’t put them all into the same section. And remember that few readers will see a quote you think will make a wonderful “kicker” (or closing paragraph). In the Libya story, our colleagues recount a threat made by the sovereign wealth fund’s deputy chief executive, Mustafa Zarti, to the Goldman Sachs salesman. “You are only a Moroccan here in Libya,” he said. “I can make you disappear, and nobody will ever hear back from you.”

Another example shows how a quote of just two words can be powerful with the right setup. She asked to see the due diligence the LIA had performed before committing to the deals. They responded, she wrote, “Due what?” Details

Anecdotes, imagery and astute observations by the reporters helped land the Libya story on the cover of Businessweek. Each detail gave the narrative a “you-are-there” quality while propelling the story forward to say something about what happened and why. In one example, the reporters describe how Kabbaj helped stock an in-house library for the LIA.

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In addition to dry tomes on asset allocation and pop-economics hits such as The Black Swan, he bought the Libyans a few copies of Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis’s seminal tale of bond salesmen screwing over clients. (Amazon.com didn’t deliver to Libya, so Kabbaj ordered the books to London and had a colleague lug them to Tripoli.)

Now we know more about both our protagonist and the financial knowledge of his clients. Here’s a line that gives us insight into the deputy chief executive at Libya’s sovereign wealth fund. Zarti favored Italian suits in loud colors, paired with chunky watches from Audemars Piguet, and he was often accompanied at meetings by his elegant assistant Sofia Wellesley, the aristocratic granddaughter of the Duke of Wellington, who would make introductions and smooth out Zarti’s rough manners.

Even a description of the sovereign wealth fund’s headquarters serves to show the reader why this was an atypical client for Goldman Sachs. First impressions of the LIA were unpromising. The Al-Fateh Tower seemed like it couldn’t possibly be the headquarters of a multibilliondollar investment fund. The 25-story structure had been built without enough elevators, which meant long waits in a dingy lobby full of cell phone shops. A ring-shaped roof deck was supposed to rotate but didn’t. The LIA’s floor was a raw construction site with almost no furniture. Numbers

Many business stories fail because reporters get so caught up in collecting color and anecdotes that they forget the data. How big is the company, or country? What are the most important indicators for readers to know? There’s also the corollary issue: A piece laden with so many numbers that readers feel like they’re reading a spreadsheet, not a story. Like most Bloomberg stories, the Libya narrative is all about money. It’s our job to follow the money. But the reporters spread the figures around so that the numbers don’t overwhelm or put off the reader. The story uses numbers sparingly and strategically for maximum impact,

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especially to highlight Goldman Sachs as the industry heavyweight. Terminal Tip

FA View a company’s financial analysis, including its earnings history and estimates for future quarters.

Ben-Brahim gave Zarti a sense of Goldman’s scale: It had 26,000 employees, $69 billion in revenue, and $9.5 billion in profit. Zarti said, “So if you had a flag, you’d be a country.”

The reporters also employ numbers to provide context and comparison. Look how the following paragraph captures the story’s theme and then delivers a figure to support the idea. The reemergence of Libya, and its vast oil wealth, coincided with an era of nearly unbridled avarice on Wall Street—and nowhere more so than at Goldman Sachs. The same year that Qaddafi established the LIA, Goldman posted the largest profit in Wall Street history. The bank paid employees an average of $622,000, with many times that amount available for bankers who nailed down the biggest deals.

In sum, the story works because it follows a consistent theme and uses compelling anecdotes and quotes to hook readers and hold their attention to the end. Like any great Bloomberg story, it also tells our global audience something they may not know about a part of the world or about an aspect of finance, business or economics. Let’s now examine some of the mechanics of good writing.

Writing Well Precision and Brevity

The words we write define us as a news organization, whether they’re for a First Word story, a Bloomberg Intelligence bit, a television banner, a Businessweek article or text for a chart. Use familiar words

Instead of commence, say begin; instead of purchase, say buy; instead of finalize, say end or complete; instead of announced, say said. And so on.

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Write short sentences

A sentence is too long if you have to pause for breath while reading it aloud. A 20-word lead is usually easier to digest than a 40-word one. Before: Mahindra’s plan to develop self-driving tractors comes at a time when competitors such as Deere & Co. are already offering autonomous vehicles, and digital tools and technologies are increasingly being adopted by the industry. (35 words) After: Mahindra’s competitors such as Deere & Co. already offer autonomous vehicles as the automobile industry adopts more digital technologies. (19 words) Write short stories

Bloomberg stories come in different lengths, depending on the platform. In general, the shorter, the better for an audience with limited time. Our readers increasingly scan news on their phones or receive targeted alerts, so most stories should stay below 500 words. It’s also unnecessary in most cases to update a story merely to add background or a quotation near the bottom. Consider instead rewriting the top of the story (and the headline) to lead with the most current information. Narratives may exceed 500 words when there’s a consensus that in-depth reporting is required to provide essential anecdotes and context or to tell a compelling tale. Write a sidebar

Rather than update a narrative story, consider a sidebar with a fresh angle on the news. The sidebar could be a chart, a table or a list of bullet points—anything to help explain the topic. It should be short, usually no more than 300 words. After publication, link it to the main story and vice versa. Cut boilerplate

Keep stories tight by removing unnecessary background or boilerplate material. Instead, add a link or two in the story to previous articles, or highlight a QuickTake explainer.

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Avoid hype

Understatement confers greater authority than hype. Verbs in market stories such as surged, tumbled and plunged lose their significance when the facts don’t support the words. It’s better to find a superlative that backs up the verb such as declined 20 percent or fell the most in 10 years. Headline hype is particularly egregious and can lead to complaints. We don’t believe in sensational headlines or TV banners that exaggerate a story’s content. For example, a story that makes only a fleeting reference to a company shouldn’t include the company’s name in the headline. Get right to the news

Every sentence should get to the point quickly. Readers, listeners and viewers are cheated when we back into the news. Before: A majority in the Dutch lower house of parliament is likely to vote in favor of a bill proposal from Democrats ‘66 to legalize government-regulated growth of hemp. After: A proposal to legalize production of marijuana is gaining momentum in the Netherlands. Before: While a gauge of 20 exchange rates rallied the most in 11 weeks after U.S. jobs data on Friday came in worse than the lowest forecasts in a Bloomberg survey, in three of the last four times payroll figures undershot estimates currency gains were lost within a week. After: In three of the last four times that payroll figures were below estimates, currency gains were lost within a week. Be specific

Many financial and economic words and terms need further definition, or we risk providing incorrect or imprecise information to readers and viewers. Examples: Demand: For what? Where? From whom? Forecasts and estimates: From whom? For what? Over what time period? Growth: Of what? Sales or profit? Where? Over what time period?

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Price target: Over six months? A year? Profit: Net income? Operating profit? Pretax profit? Adjusted? GAAP? Short- and long-term: In the next month? In the next year? Valuations: Gross margin? Price/earnings ratio? Return on equity? Dividend payout ratio? Long subordinate clauses hinder readership

When a sentence’s main noun and verb are separated by a lengthy subordinate clause, people stop reading. Before: AstraZeneca Plc, which last week won orphan drug status in the U.S. for an experimental medicine in the treatment of a rare and sometimes fatal autoimmune disease, said it expects to finish midstage clinical trials in 2018 for the medicine. After: AstraZeneca Plc said it expects to finish mid-stage clinical trials in 2018 for an experimental medicine to treat a rare and sometimes fatal autoimmune disease. Show, don’t tell

Show, don’t tell is a simple rule for writing well. Rely on facts, anecdotes and examples, rather than characterizations and modifiers, to convince readers and listeners that we were there or know what we write is true. Avoid adverbs that are loaded with unsupported assertions: lavishly compensated, hugely successful, flatly denied. The best reporters assemble the details, anecdotes and comments and let the readers decide who’s right, wrong, guilty or innocent. They don’t rely on phrases such as raises questions or raises eyebrows. The same goes for adjectives that are equally imprecise: strong sales, robust economy, major rally, weak demand and steady rates. What does strong mean? A 20 percent sales increase? 50 percent? 75 percent? Is the economy robust when gross domestic product is growing at a 2 percent rate? 4 percent? 6 percent? Characterizations

Characterizations are subjective judgments. As a global news organization that publishes content in numerous languages, we must

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continually be aware that such labels mean different things to different people. Words such as mistress, authoritarian and radical carry negative connotations and can hurt our credibility. Use facts to define people or organizations. Assertions

Assertions require examples, anecdotes, attribution or quotations that support the statement. Readers, listeners and viewers won’t trust what we say without the proof. If we call a company or government “beleaguered” or “troubled,” we should say what the problems are. If we assert that someone is “struggling,” we must show how. Jargon

It’s tempting to use the jargon of the companies and markets we cover, but it’s important to remember our audience. Acronyms and industry-specific terms that are appropriate for Bloomberg Intelligence or First Word may not be easily understood by a subscriber to Businessweek. Before: ModusLink has retained Goldman Sachs to review strategic alternatives, including the disposal of certain assets. After: ModusLink hired Goldman Sachs to review options, including the sale of some assets.

Paraphrase rather than use quotes containing jargon. Before: “Market conditions remained challenging for the quarter driven by very low levels of activity in the resource sectors,” Chief Executive Officer Harris Fricker said in the statement. After: The market remained challenging in the quarter, driven by a slump in demand from clients in the natural resources industry, Chief Executive Officer Harris Fricker said in the statement. Clichés

Clichés and journalese diminish our voice and message. Trite phrases show the writer is willing to settle for the first words that come to mind rather than something fresh.

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A few to beware of: At first glance. At a crossroads. At the end of the day. XX is not alone. Begs the quesTerminal Tip THES tion. Deep dive. Double down. Facesaving compromise. Game changer. Use Roget’s Thesaurus to Going forward. Growing body of find synonyms. evidence. Hastily convened. Iconic. It remains to be seen. Rose from obscurity. What a difference a XX makes. Zero to hero. Word echoes

If the same word appears more than once in a paragraph, it sticks out. Rewrite or look for a synonym. Words that often echo include it, its, it’s, to, boost, cut, new, grow, expect, bid, also, rise, gain, fall and expand. Also be mindful of word echoes between headlines and leads. Before: Japan has had EXTRA budgets every year since at least 1993, and even with that EXTRA spending, it has STILL had six recessions and an entrenched period of deflation that has left the world’s thirdlargest economy STILL struggling to get off the floor. After: Japan has had extra budgets every year since at least 1993. Even with that spending, the world’s third-largest economy has suffered six recessions and an entrenched period of deflation. Tense and voice

Most Bloomberg stories rely on past tense and active voice: he said, she said, he did, she did. The active voice (fell 10 percent to 4.52, rose to a record, declined, advanced, gained) is stronger than the passive voice (losses were offset by, gains were moderated by, selling pressure was relieved by). Terminal Tip Passive voice is acceptable to put WORD the main subject of the news first. Find definitions from Argentina’s Debt Rating Lowered to B3 Webster’s New World by Moody’s is a better headline than College Dictionary. Moody’s Lowers Rating on Argentina’s

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Debt to B3. The news is that Argentina became less creditworthy, not simply that Moody’s Corp. changed a rating. American English

Bloomberg Editorial & Research uses standard American English spellings no matter where a word originates. For example, we write analyze, not analyse, and defense, not defence. We also seek to avoid idioms that may not be universally understood.

Corrections & Lapses From time to time, we get it wrong. Every news organization does, and rare is the reporter or editor who never makes a mistake. Bloomberg journalists correct their errors as quickly as possible so the mistakes don’t spread. Transparency is key, both externally and internally. Our audience depends on it. Given our many platforms, it’s critical that we alert our colleagues about corrections if there’s a possibility the error will be replicated elsewhere, including on Bloomberg TV or radio, or our website. Sometimes we notice our errors before readers do. When that happens, bring it to your editor’s attention immediately and correct it. Sometimes a reader calls or emails us to tell us that we made a mistake. That might come from a reader with no stake in the story, or from a subject or source mentioned in the story. When you get a call, don’t immediately promise a correction, or negotiate the wording or timing. Get the full gist of the person’s concern, and say we’ll look into it and that someone will get back in touch shortly. Be especially careful with written correspondence. People complaining about a story should be treated with courtesy. In cases in which the reader feels we were unfair, be prepared to provide supervisors a summary of the complaints. If the person becomes difficult, forward that complaint to a manager. Don’t get into a debate or a protracted discussion about sources, the editing process or other details. If someone threatens litigation or an attorney calls about a story, immediately inform the standards team and our newsroom counsel, as well as your managers.

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Most mistakes are avoidable, especially by observing certain guidelines: Check and double-check. The most common errors involve names, dates and numbers. Get your sources’ titles right: Some companies have vice presidents as well as senior vice presidents. Don’t assume gender based on a person’s first name. It’s easy to confuse this month with last month if you’re writing a story on the first of the month. These matters may seem minor, but mistakes erode your credibility—and Bloomberg’s. Let the facts speak for themselves. If an executive is convicted of perjury, we wouldn’t call him “immoral.” If a company announces disappointing results, we wouldn’t call it a “woeful report.” Stick to the facts, the numbers and the analysis. Be careful with speculative stories. Sometimes a stock, currency or commodity moves on a rumor. If the move is big enough, we can’t ignore it, but we must include a comment (or our attempt to get one) from affected people or organizations. Beware of hoaxes. Phony press releases and tweets are becoming increasingly common and ever more sophisticated. If the news seems too outrageous to be true, check it out before pressing the button on a headline. Look for clues: Most companies report news on their websites or through professional wire services before the market opens or after the close. A statement released in the middle of a trading day with typos, an unfamiliar format or an unrecognized sender may be a fake and should be scrutinized. Talk with a manager if you have any doubts about a statement’s veracity, regardless of the source. Four eyes are better than two. Use a backreader to help avoid misspellings, strange word choices or outright errors. This is especially critical for headlines. Speaking of which . . . Headlines require your undivided attention. Prepare and edit headlines for scheduled events in advance to avert lastminute scrambles. But if you have alternate headlines for different outcomes—such as an announcement by a central

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bank—be sure you’re sending the right one. Double-check numbers and spelling. Read the headline aloud. Be sure its meaning is fully backed up by the story. Stick to embargoes. Releasing embargoed news early is a violation of trust that can result in curtailed access to future news and potential liability. When setting up headlines or a story for delayed publication, always have a colleague double-check the date and time. Talk to your manager before agreeing to an embargo, and make sure you know the terms. Can we report the news at a specified time or do we have to wait for a press release? What’s the time zone for the embargo? If we inadvertently break an embargo, alert newsroom managers and contact the source of the information. No surprises. The subjects of your story should know what you’re writing about, before it’s published. Let them have their say. While we don’t let people ramble on, we do want the subjects of stories to get appropriate space. Having more of your primary character’s voice will strengthen the story and protect you against a charge of being unfair. Make sure responses are prominent in the story. Pick up the phone. If you don’t get a response to an email, call or visit the person’s office or business. Your email may get lost in a source’s crowded inbox, or it might be delivered while he’s on vacation. Or your source may email you back, but the response goes into your spam basket. And if someone is the subject of a negative story, you must call, even if the company or official hasn’t responded to us in the past. Check primary sources. A source may tell you there’s a serious allegation in a lawsuit, or a revealing number in a regulatory filing. The source may also be wrong. When the information is publicly available, we have no excuse for failing to double-check. Check the math and the time period. Is it millions or billions? Percent or percentage points? Quarterly, semi-annual or fullyear results? Same-store sales, or overall sales? Don’t assume you know the answer.

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Know who’s talking. If you’re on a conference call and get a great quote, make sure you know who said it. It might be the CFO, or it might be the CEO.

Sending Corrections We should fix errors promptly and learn from our mistakes. Our integrity as journalists and the demands of our audience mean corrections must be handled transparently, never hidden. Prepare a story that is clearly identified as a correction: (BN) Brazil Raises $3 Billion by Selling 10-Year Bonds (Correct) (BFW) CORRECT: Corn Futures Touch Highest Since Dec. 20 on CBOT

Explain what was fixed in a trashline (at the top of the story in a BFW and at the bottom for a narrative), and note in subsequent updates that a previous version was corrected, and why, so we are completely transparent about what was inaccurate. When the error is fundamental to the story, or relates to a person’s or company’s reputation, discuss with a senior manager both the wording of the explanation and whether it should be visible on the first screen. Once a correction is published, delete earlier versions to prevent them from becoming misleading reference material in the future. Errors in photos, videos, graphics and captions should also be promptly corrected, with captions noting that changes were made. If we send headlines on what turns out to be old news that didn’t move markets, publish another headline that tells readers: *IGNORE: ACME REPORTED 2Q EARNINGS YESTERDAY

If our headlines on the old news moved a company’s stock price or a currency pair, send a correction. *CORRECT: RIKSBANK RELEASED MONETARY POLICY DEC. 15

Social Media Bloomberg journalists use social media for three key reasons. It provides a way for us to showcase our stories for a wider audience. It helps establish reporters as experts on their beats. And it’s essential

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if you want to break news, follow story developments, identify trending topics and find sources. That said, we use social media differently from the way some journalists do. Anything you write, whether on a work or personal account, can go viral and become part of permanent internet history. So it’s important for us to maintain our professionalism. If you’re serious about boosting your presence online, keep in mind that different platforms work in difTerminal Tip ferent ways. Facebook is better for TWTR engaging with stories, sharing artiSearch Twitter feeds using cles with friends, and posting items the Bloomberg Terminal. with a longer shelf life. Instagram is Filter by people, topics or better for sharing photos. Twitter is securities. fast-paced, so it’s best for breaking news and real-time updates. At Bloomberg, we use many social media platforms to spread news, but the key drivers are Twitter and Facebook. Here are some best practices for each: A good tweet or Facebook post includes clear, easy-to-read text, a link to a story, and when possible, a strong image, like a chart or a photograph. Your post should add value and move a story forward, rather than simply repeat the news. Particularly on Twitter, the best tweets don’t just echo the headline. They ensure that readers learn something new, often with an interesting statistic, fact or quote from the story. Write in everyday language so your story can be understood by a wide audience, including followers who don’t use English as their primary language. Posts should read just as you would speak to a friend. And people who USE CAPITAL LETTERS tend to come across as ANNOYING and INEFFECTIVE. Remember that with the social media megaphone always on, it’s vital for your reputation and Bloomberg’s that you act wisely. Don’t tweet or post a story until it’s been published on our website, and until there’s a live URL you can include. Don’t push out speculation,

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rumors, gossip, or confidential information. Never post anything defamatory about a person or company. Beware of linking to fake news stories made to look like legitimate ones. Avoid getting into online debates or fights. In short, don’t post anything that would undermine your credibility as an objective journalist. Bloomberg has a number of institutional accounts that are handled by our social media teams. The biggest on Twitter is our @business handle, but we have others for magazines, the View and Gadfly, and departments like Technology or Markets. Similarly, Bloomberg has multiple pages on Facebook. So, how do you gain audience? It helps if you’re famous. Queen Elizabeth already had 724,000 followers on her @BritishMonarchy account when she sent her first tweet in 2014. Singer Katy Perry had the most Twitter followers in 2016 with almost 95 million. But let’s say you’re not a pop star or a royal. In that case, incorporate social media into your everyday life. Here are some ways to establish a presence: ●●

●●

Establish your knowledge of your beat. Show your expertise and share your insights with others. Stay off topics you don’t understand. Post your own stories with a personal take. Make clear that you did the interview or broke the story (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 A reporter tweets her interview

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Follow people in your field. That includes executives, traders, analysts, competing reporters and spokespeople. If one of them tweets something that is important and true, feel free to send a flash headline, quote or retweet it. Use hashtags on Twitter for big stories—e.g., #FedDecision or #SinaiCrash will bring in new readers. Retweet a Bloomberg institutional account and add your own take. Don’t be shy about sharing colleagues’ stories (Figure 3.2). Art will make your tweet more visible. And Bloomberg charts work especially well (Figure 3.3). Be transparent. If you write something inaccurate, post a correction. Don’t try to cover it up. Notify the social media team if you have questions about this. When you arrive at Bloomberg or set up a new account, be sure to include a disclaimer in your bio that says the views are yours, not those of the company. Don’t use Bloomberg logos in your art, and refrain from using “Bloomberg” in your user name or handle.

Figure 3.2 Retweeting from @business

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Figure 3.3 Tweeting with a Bloomberg chart ●●

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Don’t post internal Bloomberg information on social media, and avoid posting third-party charts or photos unless you’re sure you have permission or have discussed with our newsroom counsel. It’s OK to tweet another news organization’s exclusive story if it’s indisputably making the markets move. Be sure to note the competing publication in your post.

Social media as a reporting tool

Social media isn’t just a way to get more readers. You can use it to learn what’s going on with your beat and get an early heads-up on important tips. And given the widespread use of social media—especially Twitter—by companies, executives and political leaders, you need to be aware of what’s being posted. As noted earlier, you’ll want to follow newsmakers, spokespeople and other journalists on social media. Twitter is the obvious choice, and by setting up a dashboard application like TweetDeck or Hootsuite, you can set up discrete feeds to find information more

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quickly. Be aware there are fake or parody accounts of famous people, so be skeptical before you quote a tweet or Facebook post. A blue check mark indicates that Facebook or Twitter has verified the account. But even legitimate accounts can be hacked. If a post seems out of character or just outrageous, verify it with a trusted source. You can use LinkedIn to stay in touch with sources or find current and former employees of companies or agencies you’re covering. The advanced people search function on LinkedIn is especially powerful, as you can find people based on industry, years of experience, education, job title and more. And some sources will feel more comfortable communicating via LinkedIn than their company email. The terminal also incorporates social media into many useful feeds. Let’s say you track investor Carl Icahn. To find his tweets, go to his BIO page and click on the bird icon. To set an alert for this search or to open this page on Bloomberg Launchpad, click on “Display & Edit” (Figure 3.4). For tweets from an organization like the European Central Bank, or an industry like tobacco (shown in Figure 3.5), you will need

Figure 3.4 Carl Icahn’s tweets displayed on the terminal

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Figure 3.5 Bloomberg’s Twitter filter: A search for tweets related to the tobacco industry Bloomberg’s Twitter filter. Type TWTR to open the filter builder and set up your search. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with people to follow, given that there are hundreds of millions of Twitter users. Use the Social Data Manager, SDM, to find top-ranked Twitter handles for companies, markets, governments and more. You can go broad, with a category like Markets, or drill down to more specific subcategories, like Central Banks or Utilities. The terminal is a great source for learning when a topic, company or market is getting a surge in attention on Twitter. Run BSV to see a real-time list of Social Velocity Alerts. Bloomberg sends out an alert every time the volume of postings on a stock surges above historical thresholds. An example of postings surfaced by an alert for Embraer SA, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, is in Figure 3.6. Set up your own alerts via BSV.

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Figure 3.6 Bloomberg Social Velocity: An alert for Brazil’s Embraer

4 How We Use Data

Imagine that you’re a busy Bloomberg reader who wants to know how online travel stocks have performed. Which of these approaches works for you? 1. Priceline Group Inc.’s stock price is doing far better than those of its rivals, TripAdvisor Inc. and Expedia Inc. 2. Priceline Group Inc. shares have risen more than 33 percent in the past month, considerably more than TripAdvisor Inc. and Expedia Inc., which have risen about 9 percent and 17 percent respectively over the past 30 days. The first option is hopelessly vague. The reader has no idea how much Priceline has outpaced its competitors, or over what period. The second has the opposite problem: It overwhelms readers with a wall of numbers, where the meaning is easily lost. Fortunately, there is a third option. A straightfoward, clear graphic tells readers a great deal about what’s going on. At a glance, we can see how all three stocks have performed relative to each other. See Figure 4.1 on the next page.

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Priceline’s Stock Soars Past Rivals’ TripAdvisor, Expedia lag behind as their bookings slow PCLN

TRIP

EXPE 35% 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5

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Figure 4.1 Showing Priceline’s performance with a chart Thanks to the terminal, such data are easy to find and easy to display. Bloomberg journalists have a wealth of numbers at their fingertips, from home prices in Hong Kong to crude oil inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma. By understanding how to use that information, you can find better stories and illustrate them in ways that will draw in more readers. Learning data is like learning a new language. There are terms you need to know, rules you need to follow. Our readers are highly attuned to numbers and graphics, so it’s especially important for Bloomberg journalists to understand the key concepts.

Charting A good chart does more than simply accompany our words. It should tell a story all by itself. The same rules that guide our prose should apply to the language of graphics. The best charts are clear and illuminating. They reveal information that readers and viewers might not be able to get on their own.

How We Use Data

Charts also play well on TV, our websites and social media feeds. Attaching a chart to a Twitter or Facebook post increases the chances your story will get more readership. Consider this wall of numbers:

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G Create customized charts using Bloomberg Terminal data.

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., best known for its Subaru brand of cars, earned 66 percent of its revenue in North America in the most recently reported quarter, compared with 53 percent for Honda Motor Co., 50 percent for Nissan Motor Co. and 36 percent for Toyota Motor Corp.

Figure 4.2 shows how you might present that data visually. Bloomberg journalists use two primary charting tools: G and Toaster. G is preferred when presenting data from the terminal because clients can click on the chart to access underlying data.

Dollar Dependent North American market dominates revenue for Japan's automakers

Subaru (Fuji Heavy)

Honda

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Toyota

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Source: Bloomberg compiled data

Figure 4.2 A bar chart gives clarity to a group of numbers

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Toaster is excellent when we’re presenting third-party data not found on the terminal. A key issue is when to use a bar chart, line chart, pie chart or histogram. Here are some guidelines: Bar Chart: These are best used for specific and discrete values, such as quantities or worth. Bar charts should always start at zero. Each bar should represent a separate value point, such as the example on U.S. unemployment rates in Figure 4.3. Line Chart: Use this for connected values, especially those that show change over time. Start with a Y-axis value that demonstrates your point but doesn’t exaggerate it (Figure 4.4). When comparing prices, such as equities or indexes, it’s usually best to “normalize” the chart by percentage appreciation. That enables readers to immediately understand who’s up and who’s down. Pie Chart: This is most useful when showing component parts of a whole. Don’t bother with a pie chart if the values are all virtually

Ten U.S. States With Lowest Unemployment Areas with high oil production have the lowest jobless rates 5.0% 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 Neb.

N.D.

S.D.

Utah

Minn.

Idaho

N.H.

Okla.

Texas

Wyo.

U.S.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Figure 4.3 Use bar charts to compare specific and discrete values

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Look It Up: Domino’s Beats Google Pizza chain leads search-engine owner in returns after 2004 IPOs Domino’s Pizza (went public 07/12/2004)

Alphabet Class A (went public 08/18/2004) 2500

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0 2005

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Figure 4.4 Line charts are best for connected values over time equal—for example, a chart showing that 51 percent of a company’s revenues are domestic and 49 percent are from overseas. Figure 4.5 on the next page shows an example of a useful pie chart.

Commonly Used Terms Here are some of the most important ones. It’s by no means an exhaustive list. Mean, Median and Mode

Journalists often confuse these terms, though many of the reports we use cite them frequently. The mean is an average of numbers, calculated by adding the values and dividing that total by the number of values. It is also called the “arithmetic mean.” Let’s say you have five numbers: 12, 30, 42, 86, 100. Their total is 270. Now divide by five. 270/5 = 54. So the mean is 54.

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Vivendi Sales by Region Entertainment company’s home market is still the largest

24% Rest of Europe

42% France

14% Rest of world

20% U.S. Source: Vivendi filings Figures are for fiscal year 2015

Figure 4.5 Use pie charts to show parts of a whole The median is the middle value in the list of the numbers; there should be an equal number of data points above it and below it. In the same series of five numbers: 12, 30, 42, 86, 100, the middle value is 42. When there are an even number of data points, the median is the mid-point between the two in the middle, so the median of 1, 2, 3 and 4 is 2.5, or the average of 2 and 3. The mode is the value that occurs most often within the set. In this series—12, 30, 30, 86 100—the mode is 30 because it appears twice. Which should you use? At Bloomberg, we usually use the mean for earnings estimates and most other calculations. Be aware that the average can misrepresent what’s going on if one data point is much higher or lower than the rest. We can correct this by excluding some outliers in calculations. When reporting on economic estimates, we usually use the median rather than the average. The median provides a way to reduce the impact of outlier data points. Suppose, for example, you want to explain income in a small Arkansas community where

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several billionaires live. The mean will be skewed upward, because of the wealth of those few rich people. In such a case, the median may be a more helpful number to cite. But if your data set is very large— say, income in Dallas or Beijing—outliers will have less effect, so the mean will be a better choice. While the mode is rarely used, it can help readers understand a common value in a data set. Margin of Error

This term, especially common in political polling and demographic surveys, explains the boundaries within which the poll result is most likely to be true. Keep in mind that the margin of error applies to each entity in the poll, both positive and negative. The margin of error is a mathematically derived figure, dependent on many factors, especially sample size. Suppose a poll of registered voters shows that 52 percent of them favor Hector Rodriguez and 48 percent prefer his opponent, Jose Gomez. The pollster reports that the margin of error is 5 percentage points. That means Rodriguez’s range is 47 to 57 percent, while Gomez’s is 43 to 53 percent. In other words, it’s possible that Gomez is actually ahead by a small margin, or that Rodriguez is ahead by a very large margin. If a pollster subdivides the results into smaller populations, the sample size diminishes and the margin of error increases. So be wary when people cite a subset of people polled—e.g., female voters, or people over 65. The margin of error could be so high that any conclusions are meaningless. Correlation and Causation

Two or more things can happen at the same time, and one often causes—or helps to cause—the other. If the stock market rises 30 percent in a year, and capital gains tax receipts rise the following year, it’s possible that the former caused, or helped to cause, the latter. If Stockholm gets twice as much snow as usual, and the snow removal budget for the city doubles, we can tie those events together as well.

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But journalists—and the people we interview—often claim to find links between disparate data points, and the effort to tie them together can be misleading. Data geeks like to boil this down to the phrase, “correlation is not causation.” Suppose a company spokesman notes that just months after its CEO received a large raise, the company’s profits rose substantially. Is the company performing better because the CEO is happier with his salary? It’s possible, but it’s more likely that you should be looking at other factors, such as better marketing or reduced competition. Or, suppose that an interest group issues a press release noting that a large number of people suffering from a rare form of cancer live within 10 miles of a power line. Is the electric company to blame for the illnesses? Before noting that correlation, you’ll want to do more homework on the known causes for that disease. At other times, there are multiple factors to consider, and basing your story on only one of them is risky. For example, a central bank might raise interest rates in an effort to stem inflation. And then the inflation rate does slow. Is that because of the bank’s action? Or are other factors at play, such as new technologies that lower costs for companies, or an influx of minimum wage workers that helps keep down payroll expenses? Finally, keep in mind that correlation is often used by traders, including Bloomberg’s customers who use terminal functions to perform this analysis. They seek similarities in the movements of equity or commodity prices, for example. In such cases, the traders aren’t primarily looking to assign causes to the movement; they’re seeking opportunities to make a profit. Standard Deviation

Statisticians use this term to gauge how far a data point is from the mean, or average, of all the data. In business, standard deviation helps investors understand the volatility of a financial instrument. A stable stock or fund will have a lower standard deviation than an equity that has wide spreads in its highs and lows.

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Think of it this way: The higher the standard deviation of a particular price move is from that security’s average price move, the more unusual it is. Generally speaking, about 68 percent of all price moves for a security are one standard deviation or less from the mean, and 95 percent of them are two standard deviations or less. This measure makes it possible to gauge the significance of a price move, because a 5 percent gain could be very unusual for one stock and nothing all that special for another. In Figure 4.6, we’re charting the number of times Intel stock has moved a certain percentage per week over a 10-year period. The mean weekly change—slightly more than 0 percent—is denoted by the center orange line, and the standard deviations from the mean are depicted by the other vertical orange lines on the left and right. So in this case, a weekly stock price move between about –3.5 percent or Terminal Tip HRH +4 percent will happen within one standard deviation, or 68 percent of View the historical return histogram to see the the time. And a move between about distribution of share price –7.5 percent or +8 percent will hapgains or losses. pen within two standard deviations, or 95 percent of the time.

Figure 4.6 Chart showing range of Intel’s price moves

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To put this in journalistic terms, if Intel falls or gains, say, 11 percent in a week, that is very unusual—and therefore big news.

Common Errors  Percentage vs. Percentage points: A percentage is a ratio, expressed as a fraction of 100. If 40 percent of engineers at a company are female this year, that means for every 40 female engineers, there are 60 who are men. A percentage point is the numerical amount, or difference. So, if at that same company a year ago, only 30 percent of engineers were women, that means the female engineering population is now up 10 percentage points (to 40 percent from 30 percent) or is up 33 percent (since the difference—10 points—is one third of 30 percent). Adjusting for population size: Suppose ABC Telecom Co. gets 6,000 customer complaints a year, and XYZ Telecom Co. gets 3,000 complaints. In isolation, those numbers are meaningless for comparison. You want to know, at the least, the number of customers each company has. So if ABC has 600,000 customers and XYZ has 75,000, ABC gets only one complaint per 100 customers, while XYZ gets one per 25 customers. Sourcing issues: A great chart is meaningless if the underlying data are flawed. Where did the numbers come from, and are they reliable? Failing to provide attribution and give credit violates our ethical standards, undermines our credibility and leaves us open to possible legal action. Extrapolation: Suppose that five people contract a serious disease this week, 10 next week and 20 the following week. At that rate of growth, more than 167 million people will get that disease in six months. But such rates rarely remain unchanged, and indeed, they tend to revert to the mean over time. This goes for business as well as epidemiology, so don’t assume a company that reports a 25 percent jump in annual revenue followed by a 50 percent jump the next year will keep growing at that pace.

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Confounding variables: This is an extra factor—often unforeseen—that may affect the way we can make a conclusion based on data. Suppose you learn that manufacturing workers at ABC Car Parts suffer fewer injuries per capita than those at XYZ Auto Parts. So ABC is a safer workplace? Not necessarily. Perhaps ABC mostly produces lightweight wiring, while XYZ manufactures heavy engine parts. Or maybe the injuries at ABC, while fewer in number, are more serious than those at XYZ.

Automation Our data can do more than serve as the basis for illustrative charts. As journalism evolves from covering what happened to explaining why it did, we are now programming computers to chase down facts so that our journalists have more time to dig up scoops and analyze developments. Bloomberg has published automated news stories since the early 1990s, starting with stock movements in emerging markets. We also mechanized Japanese earnings stories to provide profit and revenue information in English and Japanese simultaneously. News alerts were introduced to signal to clients when news was breaking on specific topics and asset classes. News automation these days is ever more sophisticated and extensive, involving most platforms in Bloomberg Editorial & Research. And we are constantly working on technological developments that will provide the most relevant information to our audience much faster than any human could. Let’s look at a few examples. Automation technology produced these breaking news headlines from press releases: AT&T TO BUY TIME WARNER 5.1 MAG. EARTHQUAKE 36KM SW OF ASHKASHAM AFGHANISTAN: USGS

Automation was used here to show a company’s opening stock price fell short of what investors paid in the initial public offering: AZURE POWER GLOBAL OPENS AT $16.12, IPO AT $18.00

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Similarly, this headline compares a revenue figure extracted from a press release with Bloomberg’s average estimate of analysts: MCDONALD’S 3Q REV. $6.42B, EST. $6.28B

The same principle can apply to a full story. Here’s an automated First Word earnings fill that moved within seconds of the press release: Graphic Packaging 3Q Adj. EPS Misses Est. Graphic Packaging 3Q adj. EPS 20c, est. 21c •• 3Q net sales $1.10b, est. $1.13b •• 3Q adj. Ebitda $200.1m, est. $206.8m •• Statement •• 8 buys, 1 hold, 0 sells before today •• Call 10 a.m. (NY time), 800-392-9489 pw 61299822

Other automated stories are derived from changes in analysts’ “buy,” “hold” and “sell” recommendations and other corporate actions: Zions Banc Cut to Market Perform at KBW, PT $33 PT set to $33, implies 1.8% upside from last close. •• ZION had 14 buys, 13 holds, 2 sells before today

Jana Added UHS, PCLN, MDLZ, VIAB, TWTR in 3Q: 13F Jana reported new stake in Universal Health and holds no shares of Walgreens Boots as of Sept. 30, according to quarterly 13F filed today. •• Top new buys: UHS, PCLN, MDLZ, VIAB, TWTR, SEM, VVV, KATE •• Top exits: WBA, MSFT, EXPE, PF, AN, ADS, SYF, BERY, ASH, RACE

News automation, of course, is only as good as humans make it. Even though the computer generates a story or headline, it needs humans to tell it what to look for and where to look. In other cases, the computer spots a trend, delivers a portion of a story to our journalists and in essence asks the question: Do you want to add something to this and then publish it?

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Done properly, automated journalism makes all our jobs more efficient by making sense of data and delivering stories that our audience can use to make informed investment decisions.

Technical Analysis Securities move up and down based in large part on fundamentals like valuations, earnings, risk metrics and yield. There are also patterns that traders and others chart to get a sense of where prices might be heading. Sophisticated technical analysis can provide clues on the markets, which our audience appreciates. Remember that each trader or analyst has a preferred method, so it’s important to explain why we’re focusing on a specific indicator in a way that’s easy for everyone to grasp. At the same time, remember that no analytical tool is perfectly predictive, and we must be vigilant not to attach certainty to an indicator that portends a security’s rise or fall. Here are a few of the most popular functions followed by technical analysts. This is just a sampling, and Terminal Tip there are dozens more on the termiTECH nal. If you’re mystified by what the Browse popular technical terms mean, you can find definianalysis functions including Bollinger Bands, Candle tions via HELP—for example, HL Patterns and Moving SIMPLE MOVING AVG. Averages. Relative Strength Index

Traders want to know when securities appear to be overbought or oversold, meaning they’re ripe for significant losses or gains, respectively. One way to track that is the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which measures the velocity of a security’s price movement. The RSI scale goes from 0 to 100, and the key numbers here are 30 and 70: A buy signal is usually triggered when the indicator crosses 30 from below, while a sell signal comes when the indicator crosses 70 from above. To perform an RSI analysis, load a security and then RSI.

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Here’s a story and a chart (Figure 4.7) that benefited from this analysis: The Market Vectors Russia ETF, the largest exchange-traded fund tracking Russian stocks, is one of the 20 worst performers among its peers this year. One technical indicator is signaling that the rout may be ending. A 15 percent decline in the fund’s price through Friday pushed its 14-day relative strength index below 30. Such low RSI reading tends not to last very long, and that gauge is considered a bullish signal.

As it happened, this analysis was on the money: The ETF rose almost 25 percent in the two months after the story was published. Bollinger Bands

Securities can become more or less volatile at different times, and Bollinger Bands help traders determine those periods. They alert

Russia ETF Relative Strength Index Near Oversold Territory RSI readings oscillate between 1 and 100. RSI of 30 means security is oversold Overbought

70 60

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Figure 4.7 Technical indicator showing ETF’s declines may be ending

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investors when a security rises too high or falls too low by comparing its price with the average level. The bands mark the areas that are a specified number of standard deviations above or below the security’s moving average, usually two. Trading near the upper band tends to be a bearish signal, while movement near the lower band is more bullish. The bands widen as volatility increases and shrink as it decreases. A stock’s Bollinger percentage measures how close it is to the upper band and lower band. A third Bollinger metric shows the spread between the two lines: The wider it is, the more volatile the price. Bollinger bands are frequently used to confirm other signals, such as RSI. To see a Bollinger chart, run a security and then BOLL. Moving Average Convergence/Divergence

This technical analysis helps you see if a security may be on the verge of changing direction. It plots the difference between shorter- and longer-term moving averages of the price against that spread’s moving average, known as the signal line. The MACD line crossing the signal line is bearish when trending down and bullish when trending up. Likewise, the shorter-term average overtaking the longerterm mean (so the MACD line moves above zero) is bullish and vice versa. Use MACD to display the analysis. Golden Crosses and Death Crosses

Analysts often look at a stock’s moving average—that is, the average price over a specific period. The most common timeframes are 50 and 200 days. When the shorter-term moving average line passes above the longer-term line, that’s a bullish sign known as a golden cross. The death cross is its opposite—that is, when the longer-term line passes the shorter. The longer the time between a golden cross and a death cross, the stronger the signal. Figure 4.8 shows a graphic depiction for Apple stock of both crosses, each of which preceded a significant gain or loss.

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Apple’s Two Crosses Using moving averages to find signals for stock moves Apple Inc

SMAVG (50) (AAPL US) 77.4807

SMAVG (200) (AAPL US) 68.2698

$100 Death Cross 90 Share price

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Figure 4.8 Moving averages can provide buy and sell signals And here’s an example of how we’ve used this analysis to inform our coverage: Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average is poised to rise to 15,500, a level unseen since January, as a technical pattern known as a golden cross signals upward momentum.

5 Ethics & Standards

Bloomberg Editorial & Research has grown from a scrappy upstart to become the must-have source of business and financial news around the world. The keys to our success have been an unyielding commitment to getting the facts right, no matter how big or small the story; being prompt and transparent in owning up to errors; and treating our sources and subjects with fairness and balance. Without these guiding principles, our audience would tune out and our network of sources would quickly dry up. Our work doesn’t just stand or fall on the words, videos or graphics we use to tell the story. It also hangs on how we comport ourselves— professionally and personally—as we’re working to get the story. We must ensure that nothing we do in the newsroom or outside of the office tarnishes our work or Bloomberg’s reputation in any way. That’s why everyone in Editorial is required to review and acknowledge a Journalistic Code of Conduct annually. Research adheres to separate compliance rules. Sometimes the right thing to do is difficult to determine. Never hesitate to reach out to a senior manager, the standards team or a newsroom lawyer for help in figuring out the best path forward.

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Accuracy & Fairness Accuracy must underpin everything we do. When we make a factual error, we must fix it as quickly as possible and label the revised story as a correction. This applies to both print and broadcast—no exceptions. Never delay or hide a correction. The longer a mistake remains uncorrected, the more people are likely to come across the error and to question other facts. (See Corrections & Lapses in How We Write, Chapter 3, for tips on avoiding errors.) Similarly, readers, listeners and viewers will lose faith in a news organization that they don’t perceive as fair. Our policy is to give people, companies and organizations a fair chance to respond to allegations of wrongdoing, incompetence or unethical behavior before the story is published. The more serious the allegation, the greater our effort should be to collect a response from the subjects or their proxies, such as their lawyers or spokespeople. When we do get responses, those comments should receive prominent placement in our story. If we find out that ABC Co. has been polluting the local river, we don’t wait until the end of the story or TV segment to show recent efforts the company has taken to clean up its act. If a person or company declines to comment for a story, is there anything they have said on the topic previously that might help represent their views? Or is there another person or group that could help explain their side of the story? We don’t practice “gotcha” journalism. If the subjects of a story are genuinely surprised by what we publish, we probably have failed at making a good-faith effort to seek their response and let them know what’s coming. When a story (or a person quoted in a story) accuses another person of dishonest, unethical or illegal conduct, or reports other facts that may harm a person’s reputation, we must evaluate the evidence that supports those assertions. Also, if we think the reader might infer from our reporting that a person or group is doing something illegal, we should include a line high in the story explaining that the activity is legal (if we know that to be true). Before publishing a link, press summary or story about another news organization’s report that accuses or implies wrongdoing or incompetence, try to obtain comment from the person, company

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or organization whose reputation is at stake. Note those efforts in the story. It is also our reputation at stake. We risk perpetuating someone else’s sloppiness, inaccuracy, bias or inadequate sourcing. Publishing a denial from another news organization’s story isn’t a substitute for our own attempt to contact the accused. If a subject refused to speak to us or couldn’t be reached and has denied the charges elsewhere, include both facts: Bloomberg News couldn’t immediately reach Jones for comment. Jones said the charges were unfounded, the Daily Bugle reported yesterday.

When an analyst or investor opines on a stock or bond, we should consider whether the person has a position that should be disclosed, and ask company officers whether they consider the assessment valid. When writing about legal charges, include any that have been defeated, appealed or withdrawn so we report the whole story. When a politician accuses another of incompetence, pursue a response from the accused. If the allegations are included in a press release, complaint or other document, consider including a link in the story so the reader can see the full comment in its original context. Headlines must be fair, clear and balanced. They should reflect what our story says and not go any further. Reporters and editors also should review all headlines to make sure their tone is appropriate for the story. When a newsroom lawyer is involved in reviewing a story, show her the proposed headlines, including alternate web headlines. Our efforts to contact the subjects must be transparent and verifiable: Two messages left after regular business hours at the vice president’s office weren’t returned.

Or: Jane Smith, a company spokeswoman, couldn’t be reached at her office or on her mobile phone.

If we get a response or “no comment” after the story has been published, update the story as soon as possible. Consider sending headlines if the response merits them.

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When possible, legal team editors should review stories that contain allegations made in civil or criminal court proceedings or filings. They are trained to recognize our requirements, cut through legalese and advise on how to get a response.

Defamation Concentrate on producing the best story possible, one that supplies all the supporting evidence and responses. That’s the best defense for avoiding a claim of libel (printed defamation) or slander (spoken defamation). A good journalist is motivated by fairness and has an inner sense for identifying and avoiding defamation. If it makes you think for even the briefest second, “Wow, that’s bad,” it may end up being defamatory. Stop and ask for guidance. Bloomberg, an international news organization, faces the risks of lawsuits wherever its content is published or the subjects of its stories live or work. In some countries, such as the U.S., constitutions and case law protect the press from claims of injured reputation or invaded privacy, assuming certain conditions are met. Other jurisdictions provide fewer protections to the press. In the U.S., documents obtained from court proceedings usually may be reported with impunity, as long as we do so fairly and accurately. Yet, many other nations restrict access to such material and may hold Bloomberg or individual reporters in contempt for publishing information contained in court papers or revealed during court proceedings. If you aren’t sure we can report something, talk to our newsroom counsel. In many countries, truth is not an absolute defense: The story must also serve an important public interest. And, in some instances, a statement doesn’t even have to be defamatory to trigger a lawsuit. A factual error that causes monetary loss can be the subject of a suit. Also in many countries, an organization that publishes a libelous statement made in another publication may be viewed as adopting it as its own—and can be held just as liable. Reproducing a defamatory statement merely with attribution to another publication is generally

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no defense in court. The same applies when we quote a source making a defamatory statement. You may need to consult with a newsroom lawyer before publishing or broadcasting. In the event of a legal challenge to a story, reporters may be instructed by our counsel to retain any pertinent notes or other information related to the story at issue, and they should preserve those materials until counsel instructs otherwise. Reporters who interview people with firsthand knowledge or evidence of wrongdoing may attract interest from law enforcement agencies wanting to know their sources or even gain access to their notes. Depending on the jurisdiction, a court may order a reporter to testify or disclose the notes, or else face a contempt charge. We will always try to protect our sources to the greatest degree possible, but our ability to do so isn’t always absolute. Reporters keep notes and research materials for different lengths of time, often depending on the project or the nature of the story. In general, we are better served by retaining our notes only for as long as we need to see a story through to publication, and then discarding whatever we won’t need for future reporting. If you are in doubt about retaining source materials, speak to a newsroom lawyer. When a red flag appears in a story draft, stop and consult with a newsroom lawyer before publication. Bloomberg Editorial & Research always has a lawyer available, including a network of media lawyers around the world who can be called for assistance. Avoiding a Defamation Claim Provide proof. As a general rule, publishing the truth is the surest way to avoid claims of libel. Explaining the basis for a story makes it more credible for readers, and having convincing onthe-record evidence will be crucial if a story has to be defended in court. Try to use public or official documents such as court records, prospectuses, proxy statements, tax records and regulatory filings whenever possible. Consider taping sensitive interviews (with the knowledge of all parties). Attribute statements frequently and completely.

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Be humble. Own up to a mistake quickly and completely. Correct completely. Fudging a correction hurts our credibility and may damage our defense to a subsequent legal challenge. Don’t correct factual mistakes by hiding them in an update. Never delete a story from the Bloomberg system without first moving a correction or getting permission from a senior editor. Be specific. If BCD Co. Vice President Joe Smith acts like a scoundrel, show it with anecdotes and let the reader decide. Avoid gratuitous statements. Be skeptical. Check out what sources tell you and don’t be afraid to ask basic questions. Do the people talking to you have something to gain? Do they have an ax to grind? How did they learn what they’re telling you? Does their information seem reliable? If you’re a reporter, make sure you know someone’s motivation for giving you information. If you’re an editor, talk to the reporter. Always consider the source. Be meticulous. A typographical error or a misplaced modifier can be grounds for a libel lawsuit if it injures someone’s reputation. Weigh your words. Edit carefully. If you’re unsure about something, delete it from your draft or don’t say it on the air. A story may be construed as defamatory, or at minimum unfair, based on how it arranges some facts and omits others. If we report that someone was accused of something and fail to include that he was acquitted or exonerated, we haven’t been fair. Be transparent. Clear attribution builds trust with our audience: According to an emailed statement from the company. The chief executive officer said in an interview. Data compiled by Bloomberg show. If we cite anonymous sources in a story, say how these people are in a position to know the information, without compromising their identities. Any anonymously sourced story must be reviewed by senior managers. (For more on sourcing, see How We Report, Chapter 2.)

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Look at all the pieces. It’s easy to become so focused on words that we forget other elements we employ to help tell a story. Make sure anything that accompanies an article or on-air story— including photos, captions, graphics, subheads and tweets—is placed in context and doesn’t go beyond what the story itself says. If a story has been reviewed by a newsroom lawyer, show her the full layout before publication. Never let down your guard. Be careful with breaking news and routine stories. News organizations can just as easily be sued over a hastily written tweet or a two-paragraph story as over a major investigative piece that has been reviewed by senior editors. Each story and social media post deserves full attention. We should be just as vigilant with broadcast reports. If a guest makes a defamatory comment on live television or radio, do your best to correct the person and make clear that Bloomberg doesn’t endorse that person’s views.

Privacy The fact that information is true doesn’t always mean that it should be published. This is particularly the case where the information raises legitimate privacy concerns, something we should take into account in our assessment of whether certain facts are worthy of publication. This is especially so in those jurisdictions where a subject’s privacy interests need to be balanced against the public interest in disclosure. In certain circumstances, financial data about an individual that isn’t public or directly related to the thrust of a story may merit additional internal discussions before we publish. And we should be particularly thoughtful about reporting what would be considered sensitive personal information. If you are preparing to report facts that the subject of a story could reasonably expect to remain private, make sure you can justify it—how would publication, in the context of the story as a whole, serve the public interest? If you are struggling

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with this question, talk to your managers, a newsroom lawyer and the standards team. Companies may also claim that we have no right to publish their confidential information because disclosure would disadvantage them competitively. In certain instances, we should consider whether the company’s interests in keeping its confidential information private outweigh the public’s right to know (for example, reporting on trade secrets). Courts in some jurisdictions may block a story if they determine that the harm potentially caused by the publication of private facts outweighs the competing public interest, or they may award damages after the fact. We should try not to find ourselves in that position. When we collect private, personal information about people in the course of our reporting, we have a heightened responsibility to keep that information secure (just as we take extra steps to protect our confidential sources). Don’t leave notes about a CEO’s medical condition lying around on your desk. Make sure personal contact information (such as a home phone number or home address) for a source is securely stored. And to leave less room for inadvertent errors or disclosures, you should, from time to time, review the personal information you’ve collected on the subjects of your reporting to ensure it is up to date and relevant to your beat, and delete what you no longer need.

Access As we seek to break news and uncover facts, we cannot let our methods for gathering information cross ethical or legal boundaries. When confronted with potential pitfalls, reporters should talk to their manager, the standards team or a newsroom lawyer. Bloomberg journalists should not join internal meetings or private conference calls for the companies they report on except under extraordinary circumstances and with the permission of the editor-in-chief. When companies hold meetings or calls with external groups such as analysts or investors, journalists may seek access if they can

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do so ethically and legally. If asked to identify themselves, reporters do so, and if asked to leave, they must comply. Bloomberg journalists should not record a telephone or in-person interview without the other party’s consent, regardless of what the law is in a given state or country. Under no circumstances may a reporter or editor access a computer system or website by using someone else’s login credentials, or by using login credentials received in connection with a nonBloomberg position (such as at a previous job or school). Doing so is not only unethical, it is, in some jurisdictions, illegal. Rather, every journalist must ensure that he or she is authorized by the owner of the system or site to access it in his or her capacity as a Bloomberg journalist. Journalists may also never access a third party’s voicemail. The newsroom staff shouldn’t sign any agreements about gathering or publishing information without review by a lawyer. This includes nondisclosure agreements, embargo agreements and anything that has the potential to constrain our news gathering or publication efforts. Reporters should check with a manager before verbally agreeing to embargo a story for publication at a specific time.

Plagiarism Bloomberg Editorial & Research is legally and ethically obligated to respect the intellectual property of other news organizations and to be honest about our news gathering. Plagiarism—the unattributed copying of others’ work—is inexcusable. Bloomberg is proud of the work of our journalists and spends considerable time and resources protecting the integrity of our stories. Show other news organizations the same respect. Plagiarism is theft. Be prepared to lose your job if you plagiarize. Always credit original reporting to those who did the legwork, and never reproduce quotes made to others as if we heard them ourselves. Press summaries must cite the publication that did the reporting and explain the attribution used in the original story. While facts are in the public domain, the selection and arrangement of those facts may constitute creative expression, which can be protected

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by copyright. Our press summaries and other work—including graphics, tables and charts—should add independent analysis or research when appropriate.

Conflicts of Interest Internal Conflicts

The Bloomberg Terminal provides journalists an array of data and analytics that supply context for stories. While we should make full use of this resource in our reporting, Bloomberg journalists don’t have access to any Bloomberg LP data about our customers that aren’t generally available to terminal clients. Bloomberg journalists may separately speak with Bloomberg LP customers as sources and use materials that they provide as part of the news-gathering process. Editorial operates independently from Bloomberg LP’s sales team and Bloomberg LP generally. All interactions between sales and news should happen on a manager-to-manager level rather than on a salesperson-to-reporter level. Bloomberg reporters don’t join sales calls or attend sales meetings with customers or prospective clients. Sales personnel shouldn’t contact reporters or editors to encourage or discourage news coverage, and all complaints from customers should be directed to a senior news manager. To help preserve the boundary between editorial decisions and the business interests of Bloomberg LP, journalists sit in a separate area from sales staff as much as the physical space of our bureaus allows. Bloomberg Editorial and Bloomberg Intelligence cooperate as close, but independent, organizations. Journalists and BI analysts should limit discussions to publicly available information and may talk to one another in general terms about matters on which they are working. Both groups should protect their unique information and sources, including unpublished stories and research. Journalists may quote BI analysts and economists, or cite BI research in news stories as they would any third-party source. Bloomberg journalists also work free of any influence—explicit or implicit—from advertisers or sponsors across all of our platforms.

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We don’t participate in producing custom content, also known as paid programming or advertorials, where the advertiser has a direct say in or influence over the program. We also don’t publish or display custom content when a reasonable reader or viewer could question our integrity or credibility. In an instance in which an advertiser sponsors an editorial project such as a web feature, television special or event, a senior manager may work with Bloomberg’s commercial team to frame the topic generally. The rest of the editorial work must be done independently. Editorial content should not be changed or delayed because of sponsor concerns. If the resulting content risks embarrassing the sponsor, the commercial team should be notified in order to give the sponsor an opportunity to take its name off of the content. Covering Bloomberg

Bloomberg LP is a closely held entity with no obligation to divulge proprietary data. Bloomberg Editorial doesn’t originate stories about the company. Bloomberg should be included, upon approval of a standards editor, in cases in which omitting the company from a broader story would be misleading or make the story incomplete. A company spokesman should be provided an opportunity to comment. When we decide to summarize other news organizations’ stories about Bloomberg, we should also give the company an opportunity to comment. There is a potential conflict of interest when reporting about competitors, so we must disclose any conflict and provide a disclaimer: Bloomberg competes with Acme News Co. in providing news and information to the financial community. Or: Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Acme News Co. in providing news, information and trading systems to the financial community.

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Whenever we name Michael Bloomberg in a story, note his role as founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP. When reporting on his actions as a newsmaker, we should call him for comment as we would contact any other public figure. Bloomberg Editorial doesn’t cover Michael Bloomberg’s wealth or personal life. External Conflicts

Journalists are the faces of Bloomberg Editorial & Research and should expect the public to equate their behavior with the company. Bloomberg respects the right of its editorial staff to vote. Bloomberg also acknowledges that individuals may belong to, or be involved in, nonpolitical, civic and social organizations. Without prior approval, journalists may not run for public office, serve on any governmental body, or contribute funds to candidates, parties or political action committees. They should also not use any public forum, including social media, to campaign on behalf of a particular issue or to express personal opinions in a way that would harm Bloomberg’s ability to cover the news in an impartial manner. This could include any politically provocative action, such as making a comment on a Bloomberg MSG9 message greeting or sending a tweet. In short, journalists shouldn’t be mouthpieces for any agenda. Reporters and editors shouldn’t contribute funds or services to organizations that lobby, disseminate information or otherwise try to shape regulatory, economic or political debate in a way that targets industries that they cover. For example, a reporter covering agriculture shouldn’t donate money to a group that campaigns against genetically modified foods. Paying for a subscription to a newsletter published by such an organization to obtain resource material is allowed. Be aware of organizations that treat such subscriptions as memberships. Journalists may participate in organizations recognized as taxexempt and nonpolitical charitable corporations. In the U.S., for instance, these kinds of organizations are typically of a religious, scientific, literary or educational nature and are recognized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service code.

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Financial Conflicts

Bloomberg LP has companywide policies in place on personal investment activities that are, in many respects, more restrictive than what the law requires. These policies are designed to ensure that no employee misuses (or could be fairly perceived to have misused) his or her position for personal gain. Among other things, Bloomberg LP employees are prohibited from: selling short (or betting that the price of an investment will fall); selling securities for a profit within 30 days of purchasing them; trading in most derivative instruments; and profiting from news, data or information learned in the course of employment that has yet to be made public. For a discussion of prohibited investment activities, refer to the company’s Global Resource and Information Core Guide on POLY. Bloomberg Editorial imposes restrictions on journalists that go even further than these policies. We do this so that our motives for reporting on markets, companies and industries can never be called into question. We must assiduously avoid economic relationships that interfere with our ability to make judgments based on the facts, or that can give the appearance of doing so. Our journalists may not buy, sell or hold any individual equities, bonds or other financial instruments in companies or industries for which they have reporting, editing or coverage responsibilities. Financial interests should be held in broad-based funds or “blind trust” type accounts in which the journalist has no knowledge of, or input into, holdings or investment decisions. Any exceptions must be approved in advance by senior managers and the company’s compliance department. In exceptional circumstances, with the permission of senior managers, a minimal number of shares may be purchased to allow access to shareholder meetings that would otherwise be closed to media. If a journalist changes roles and there is a potential conflict of interest, including a conflict based on the journalist’s personal investments, he or she must immediately inform his or her mangers of the circumstances. Bloomberg Editorial management, in

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consultation with the company’s compliance department, will determine what steps, if any, should be taken to address the potential conflict. Bloomberg journalists may not discuss or distribute nonpublic information outside the scope of news gathering. This prohibition includes providing such information to parents, siblings, spouses, partners or roommates. Sometimes we may have to disclose nonpublic and potentially market-moving information to a person from whom we seek comments or verification. Be prudent in sharing, and avoid being specific on the timing of publication. Don’t ever share a story with an outside party before publication. Journalists may not trade on information they learn in connection with their positions at Bloomberg unless the information has been public and absorbed by the market for at least two full days— and even then, only if they don’t cover that company or industry. Bloomberg journalists may not promote or recommend any particular investment, nor may they render financial advice to the public. News staff may not discuss investments, securities or other financial instruments in public or internal venues, other than in the course of their legitimate reportorial activities. Columnists for Bloomberg View who are not employees may participate in such discussions so long as they don’t attribute their views to Bloomberg. Bloomberg Editorial vigorously defends the ability of journalists to gather confidential information in the course of reporting. At the same time, if a law enforcement or regulatory body is investigating potential securities law violations, we will balance our need to protect legitimate news gathering activities of our employees with the obligation to respond to lawful and valid subpoenas and similar demands for information.

Conduct Bloomberg Editorial abides by the companywide policies listed in full on HR and POLY. With the exception of certain philanthropy projects, Bloomberg LP employees may not perform work for any

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other organization during working hours, nor may they accept any employment or compensation that conflicts or directly interferes with work at Bloomberg. Published work: Stories written, edited or broadcast by Bloom­ berg Editorial & Research employees are the copyrighted property of Bloomberg LP. Bloomberg often allows people or organizations we quote to reproduce or redistribute our work. Requests should be directed to Bloomberg’s syndication department. Columnists who freelance for Bloomberg may not grant permission for reprint or redistribution rights for any columns submitted to Bloomberg, whether published or not, without the consent of Bloomberg, unless their agreement with the company says otherwise. Freelance columnists also must inform Bloomberg on a timely basis about other publications that may publish their work. Outside work: Journalists need written approval from Bloomberg to participate in any outside commercial endeavor or serve on a board. That includes publishing or contributing to any external publication, including books, magazines, trade journals, websites, blogs, films, television, radio, or any other print, visual or online media, even if the work is unpaid. Bloomberg journalists who wish to write a book must first get approval from the editor-in-chief. Relationships: Journalists who develop a romantic or a close personal relationship with a newsmaker, potential newsmaker or source should inform their team leaders and expect to be reassigned. Reporters and editors should also inform their supervisors when spouses, significant others or family members are employed by companies or organizations they cover. Communication: Bloomberg Editorial staff should use common sense and act in a professional manner at all times. Journalists will always face scrutiny and should be aware that anything posted on the internet can be disseminated by someone seeking to discredit, belittle or embarrass the reporter or the organization. Careless communication online that conflicts with Bloomberg best practices may result in termination.

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(For more on our best practices, see the Social Media section in Chapter 3, How We Write.) Professional conduct also applies to the Bloomberg message system, which is designed to expedite the communication necessary to produce the best news. Be careful what you write in messages. Assume that every message, external email or Instant Bloomberg chat can be forwarded or made public. Keep the potential for a defamation claim in mind. Suppose a reporter on a story about company officials under investigation sends a message to another reporter that says, We are going to get this guy! That message might become evidence in any libel action and be interpreted as a sign of ill intent, even if the intention was to say that we should find a way to contact the person. Even if we don’t end up in court, we take a risk when we impart personal judgments, gossip, feelings and desires in messages that could become public. Keep in mind that messages sometimes reach people other than the intended recipients.

Endorsements & Paying Our Way Bloomberg Editorial pays its own way and assumes the cost of travel and meals. It is a violation of company policy to directly or indirectly accept any payment, gift, food, lodging or any other preferential treatment that exceeds customary courtesies. Journalists are also restricted from giving, offering or promising such gifts or treatment to individuals or companies they report on. News staff may keep items of token value, such as pens, baseball hats or T-shirts. Anything beyond that should be returned with a letter explaining that accepting the gift violates our editorial policy. Use good judgment: If the pen handed out at a press event is covered in diamonds, you shouldn’t take it. Gifts that can’t be returned should be donated to charity. Occasionally, companies offer us the opportunity to sample or test new products such as cars, phones, software or hardware to write reviews or stories. Editorial staff may not keep the product once the trial is completed.

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Under no circumstances may journalists endorse any goods or services other than in a review published or broadcast by Bloomberg. Editorial staff may contribute jacket copy or cover blurbs for books or periodicals only with advance permission from the editor-in-chief. Bloomberg journalists may not accept speaking fees or honoraria, unless the editor-in-chief has approved an exception. They may attend public performances, events or conferences without paying only when properly credentialed and only for the purpose of writing or researching a story. Outside of customary courtesies, employees may not obtain discounts, food, lodging, preferential treatment or other considerations based solely on their status as journalists. Journalists are permitted to take advantage of offers that Bloomberg LP makes to employees, such as free tickets to museums and theaters.

Events & Interviews Bloomberg journalists routinely visit offices for interviews or public events. We must follow the dress code of the place we’re visiting and should always be presentable for spontaneous visits by newsmakers and sources. Reporters should behave in a manner appropriate to the events they are covering. Professionalism dictates that we treat interviewees with respect even if they are hostile, argumentative or dissembling. While we report the news, we should never create it, such as by arguing with a prime minister during a press conference and then granting interviews to the local media, or tweeting about the experience. We can ask questions without Bloomberg becoming part of the story. Similarly, Bloomberg journalists should be mindful of their roles when asked to moderate panel discussions at conferences or to give television and radio interviews. Reporters and editors should discuss requests with their managers before accepting and should typically avoid moderating events that aren’t on the record. We should also be leery of events that could create the appearance of a conflict of interest. In general, we do not participate in events companies organize for their own employees or clients. Such events could easily give rise

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to the perception that we are in their employ, hurting Bloomberg’s ability to cover that company—or its competitors—in the future. Exceptions need approval from the editor-in-chief. Some questions to ask about events: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

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What’s your role—moderating, speaking or something else? Who’s organizing the event? Who’s sponsoring it? Who’s the target audience? Is it open to the public and/or press? Is it on the record? Are they offering to pay you or reimburse travel costs? (We never accept payment.) Who else will be on the stage with you?

When speaking at a public event or in an interview, Bloomberg journalists should refrain from giving opinions or endorsements. Our job is to relay what we have already reported and what sources tell us. We can participate in internal Bloomberg LP events as journalists, not as salespeople. If asked to participate in an internal event, be sure to consult with your manager and a standards editor, who can help determine whether participation is consistent with your role as a journalist.

Contests Bloomberg Editorial is proud of the work of our journalists and welcomes the recognition that comes with professional awards. Because there are many competitions with differing sponsorships and standards for judging, we take great care about which we will enter. Honors from an organization that Bloomberg covers, for example, can create the appearance of a conflict of interest, no matter how excellent and independent our work. Bloomberg donates all monetary payments received from journalism awards to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent organization that promotes press freedom. Recipients of these awards receive the total value of the award in a separate payment by Bloomberg.

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We do not enter competitions sponsored by companies or organizations that have a direct stake in what we cover. An example would be an award for financial writing sponsored by a bank or financial services firm. There can be exceptions, such as a sponsored prize administered entirely independently by a university, provided the subject is broad and not focused on the field or affairs of the sponsor. We never accept prizes from governments or governmentsponsored organizations. Sometimes Bloomberg journalists may be asked to judge contests. A senior manager should be notified of all such requests. The same guidelines that apply to entering contests should apply to judging them. We will not judge a contest we would not enter.

6 How We Cover Markets

On the afternoon of Nov. 30, 2016, OPEC ministers met behind closed doors in their Vienna headquarters to make one of the most important business decisions of the year: Would they follow their current playbook of pumping as much oil as possible to win market share, or would they turn off the spigots in an attempt to drive prices higher? The outcome was critical for everyone from commuters to farmers, from commodity traders to airline executives. Economies on every continent depended on the result. As the debate concluded— but before the ministers emerged—their decision broke exclusively on Bloomberg thanks to deep sourcing and cooperation among reporters across the globe: “OPEC Agrees to Cut Production for the First Time in Eight Years.” Our headlines, which beat the competition by more than three minutes (an eternity for people who buy and sell oil), sent the price of crude soaring as much as 10 percent. The Russian ruble and currencies of other major oil exporters rose on the news. Shares of U.S. drillers posted their biggest one-day gain since 2008.

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Whenever news breaks, the people who buy, sell and analyze investments are the first to respond. They have the most at stake: their own or other people’s money. These investors invariably have opinions about the world sooner than most of us because their jobs require them to make a judgment whenever there is a turn of events. Anticipating their needs and studying market reaction can help us provide the most pertinent information to our audience when it’s most needed.

What’s Moving (& Why)

Terminal Tip

GMM Track the biggest movers in your market, country or region. Click on examples to find news and related securities.

The essence of market coverage is to identify and explain the most compelling changes in the prices of stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. Bloomberg Terminal clients already know what is moving— they watch the same screens that we do—so we must add value by explaining why people are making those bets and what to expect next.

Consider these 10 questions: 1. What are the benchmarks and most important securities in my market? 2. Which of these are moving the most today and why? 3. Which industries, bonds or currencies are leading the gains or losses? 4. When was the last time a security or index moved by that much? 5. Is it near or past a significant historical or technical level? 6. How have the securities performed against other investments? 7. Where is the benchmark likely headed tomorrow and the day after? Who says so? 8. What do today’s moves say about policies, economies, etc.? 9. What news events are traders and investors focusing on? 10. Who is buying and selling today and what drove their decision?

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To start finding answers, first go to the terminal. Bloomberg journalists covering markets use a customized Launchpad monitor to track second-by-second changes in equities, currencies, bonds, indexes and commodities. ●●

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Launchpad can also monitor news, economic data releases, corporate actions and much more. Set up alerts for when prices make unusual moves or breach technical levels that many traders use to place orders. Overview functions for each market provide an easy entry point.

Focus Equities Bonds Currencies Commodities

Benchmarks WEI WB WCR GLCO

Futures/Forecasts WEIF WBF FXFC CPFC

Rankings WEIS IN WCRS CRR

Daily stories about the world’s biggest-moving stocks, bonds, indexes, currencies and commodities are an opportunity to give readers news they won’t get anywhere else. The headline and lead should make clear that this specific security is unlike any other today because its value changed the most. Facebook Inc. shares slumped the most in nine months after executives suggested the company probably won’t be able to keep up with its explosive pace of growth much longer.

Use Bloomberg data and analytics to show how that day’s trading is noteworthy. Is today’s level the highest in the past year? Is it the biggest weekly decline in nine months? These superlatives provide perspective and are known internally as size and scope. The Philippine peso sank to a seven-year low as investors pulled money from the nation’s assets amid concerns about President Rodrigo Duterte’s policies.

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Energy shares make up 7.7 percent of the S&P 500, compared with 10 percent three years ago, when oil traded above $100 a barrel.

Superlatives can also be powerful when tied to a news event: The best-performing member of the FTSE 100 Index since the U.K. voted to exit the European Union. Or the worst-performing currency in the Americas since Donald Trump was elected president. Once we’ve identified the most compelling movers, we add context and perspective by taking the followTerminal Tip ing steps:

MRV and RV

Show relative value. Compar­ isons and correlations enable readers and viewers to make sound investment decisions. How did the yen compare with the euro against the dollar today? How did United Parcel Service Inc. compare with FedEx Corp. or with the S&P 500 Index? How much more volatile have daily market moves become? Is a stock cheap or expensive relative to earnings projections? Providing relative value makes news from China or India relevant and understandable in Brussels, Chicago and Sao Paulo. Explain external influences. Politics, natural disasters, regulation changes and even the weather can trigger price moves. •• What does the market’s movement say about policies, economies or government finances? •• Have any government agencies—the central bank, treasury department or ministry of finance—made announcements that could affect the market? •• Are elections scheduled soon? What are the views of the candidates on markets, government spending and subsidies? What policies might change?

Find relative value. Which indexes and companies are performing better or worse than their peers? Which have the highest and lowest price-earnings ratios?

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Make connections between markets. When prices change in one market, explain the consequences for those in another. The story of the cattle market is as much about McDonald’s Corp. as the price of meat. When cocoa prices soar, Nestle SA and Hershey Co. may have to increase chocolate prices. When Apple Inc. shares surge in New York, its Asian suppliers may follow suit. Don’t forget derivatives. Coverage of financial markets isn’t complete unless we also examine trading predicated on future price expectations. Billions of dollars are wagered every day to protect investors from a sudden drop in copper prices or to speculate on a jump in 30-year Treasury yields. Such trades involve derivatives, a catch-all term for contracts that fluctuate in value—sometimes violently—depending on price changes in an underlying asset such as an index, stock or commodity. Common examples include interest-rate and currency swaps, stock index futures and equity options. Investors can even trade the volatility of future price swings rather than the actual direction they take. Some people use swaps to hedge borrowing costs or protect themselves from changes in interest rates. Others simply want to speculate on market direction.

Traders & Investors Securities don’t trade themselves. People make the decisions. And in the case of automated trades, people write the algorithms. The most valuable part of any market report is the collection of anecdotes showing what people are doing with their money and why. Who are the buyers and sellers? What are they buying and selling? What are they saying? Investment strategies take many forms, ranging from old-fashioned

Terminal Tip

SI Short Interest. Find out what percentage of a company’s stock has been sold after it was borrowed from other shareholders. People who “sell short” seek to profit by repurchasing the shares at a lower price and then returning them.

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stock picking to event-driven trading and a quantitative analysis of past market signals aimed at predicting the future. Show what investors are doing

Provide the views and actions of money managers, mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, insurance companies and other institutions—collectively known as the “buy side.”

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Questions for the buy side: Are investors changing to different industries in equities, or shifting to corporate debt from government debt? Why?  re they shifting to bonds that are closer to maturing, or have A longer maturities? Why?  re they moving money from one currency into another? Why? A  re they hedging in the commodities markets? What are their A forecasts?  W ho has the best returns? The worst? Show what traders are doing Terminal Tip

HDS and AGGD Find a company’s shareholders and bondholders. Track changes in their holdings and see which company insiders have been buying or selling.

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Securities firms and investment banks—often known as “the sell side”—are our audience, too. You should know the biggest firms that trade stocks, bonds, commodities, swaps, currencies and other investments.

Questions for the sell side: What are these firms buying and selling? Why? Even when people say nothing is going on, something always is. What do the firm’s strategists and analysts say? What are their estimates and ratings? How have they changed? Have their forecasts been right or wrong? Which are the most or least successful?

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Be transparent

Try to get investors to tell us whether they hold or are betting against the stocks, bonds, currencies or commodities they mention. This can give our audience a deeper understanding as to why someone has a particular view. Snap Amasses Buy Ratings After Early Cool Reception: Street Wrap Snap Inc. received at least nine new buy or equivalent ratings today as analysts at firms including its IPO underwriters started coverage. Analysts were largely positive on Snap’s ability to innovate, though some warned that competitive risks will limit its valuation. Before today, the company had received an initially skeptical reaction from Wall Street, with six sell and six hold ratings. Shares gained 3.4% in pre-market trading but are still below the $24 first-day opening price. Handle rumors with care

Markets often rise and fall on speculation about some event: that gold miners will strike, that central banks will sell their currency, or that one company will make a takeover offer for another. If you and your editors decide to include speculation in a story, be as specific as possible. Call all sides for comment, and include those efforts in the story.

Markets Style Use active verbs. Choose a verb such as rose or fell that reflects the market’s move. Avoid jargon such as decliner or gainer. Don’t exaggerate. Use verbs like soared, jumped, plunged and slumped only when the magnitude of the move merits them. Avoid jargon. Securities firms have their own language when talking about the market: profit-taking, range-bound and so on. Use simple English to explain the market rather than nonspecific phrases. Use percentages. Give percentage gains or losses in markets such as stocks, currencies and commodities. Gold rose 1.5 percent

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last week to a seven-month high is more meaningful than Gold rose $16 last week. Provide timely updates. Timely reporting is the lifeblood of market coverage. Previews, flash headlines, quick fills and regular updates win the confidence of readers and viewers. •• Send headlines on significant moves such as a market changing direction or reaching a notable level. •• Rewrite story headlines throughout the day to reflect changes in the news and keep the subject fresh. Keep your focus. While the economy, politics and policy can influence market performance, other Bloomberg stories will report on those topics in depth. Market stories don’t need to duplicate this coverage. A paragraph or two should suffice and you can use touts to direct readers to the more in-depth stories. Make use of charts. Market stories are particularly well-suited to charts that provide insight on intraday or longer-term changes in prices. The best graphs don’t simply show that Sony Corp. shares jumped 3.5 percent or the pound weakened. Charts work better when they illustrate a trend or show securities that are converging or diverging. Consider the five-second rule: If the point of your chart isn’t clear by the time someone counts to five, it probably needs a rethink.

Terminal Tip

FFM Learn how to use key market functions.

Most market stories merit at least one chart. The best are worthy of our Chart of the Hour format on TOP pages and can be used in blogs, social media postings and on the website. Here’s an example:

Sports Direct International’s market value was once more than 500 percent higher than that of its competitor, JD Sports Fashion. But JD’s exclusive deals with shoe manufacturers enabled it to pull even (Figure 6.1).

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Changing of the Guard JD Sports is now the U.K.’s largest sports retailer by market value Sports Direct market value £2.38B

JD Sports market value £2.36B £6B 5 4 3 2 1 0

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Source: Bloomberg

Figure 6.1 Comparing market values with a chart

(For more on making charts, see the Charting section in Chapter 4, How We Use Data.) Add multimedia voices. We want to use pithy soundbites about the markets from our Bloomberg Television and Radio guests and from our own journalists, analysts and economists. Most of these appear on the NH BLC wire. The comments can be included as direct or indirect quotations in market stories. They can also be included in our stories as a tout, or blue link.

Equities Stock market stories are often the first thing Bloomberg clients call up on their terminals each morning, and the first thing our online audience clicks on. That’s because all the day’s news, from earnings and the economy to policy decisions and natural disasters, is reflected in share prices.

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A soundly reported stock market piece helps readers understand many complex, sometimes contradictory, strands. Markets might rise despite a disappointing unemployment report, because investors expect the central bank to offer more stimulus. Or energy stocks might fall even though oil prices are rising, because traders believe inflation will soon hurt demand. Sometimes it isn’t clear what’s going on in the broader markets. Keep that in mind when assigning cause and effect to equity moves. None of us should be convinced of our own omniscience. We start from a place of humility, recognizing that it takes rigorous reporting and excellent sourcing to find the most credible explanations. The markets overview at the start of this chapter offers guidelines for writing about all types of securities. Terminal Tip The following apply to equity marTREN kets specifically: Track stocks that are attracting greater-thanusual reader activity or news articles on the terminal or Twitter. Customize the search to the stocks you cover.

Find the why

There are many reasons why stocks go up and down. Here are four examples:

1. Earnings reports, which investors use to gauge how companies will perform. 2. Economic indicators, which can impact an entire industry. 3. Interest rate changes, which can affect spending and investment. 4. Valuation multiples, which signal whether a stock is cheap or expensive relative to its own history or to its peers. Here’s an example of economic news moving the market: Asian stocks rose, following U.S. shares higher, after weaker-thanexpected payrolls data in the world’s biggest economy tempered speculation the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates as soon as this month.

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Sometimes, economic data and corporate earnings can be combined: U.S. stocks rose, with the biggest gain in a month for the S&P 500 Index, as a jump in housing starts overshadowed disappointing results from International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp.

Or the government takes action, which sends the markets moving: Mitchells & Butlers Plc, Enterprise Inns Plc and JD Wetherspoon Plc advanced after the chancellor of the exchequer froze the duty on beer to “to support responsible drinkers and our nation’s pubs.”

Or the cause has more to do with expectations than hard news: American equities were set for the longest slide since 2011 as traders crowded into haven assets such as bonds, gold and the yen after the latest polls suggested a tighter presidential race. Identify winners and losers

Highlight the biggest gains and declines. Be aware that the process of comparing shares of companies is fraught. If a reporter is bent on showing that one stock is doing better than another, it’s relatively easy to choose time frames that will show it. The fairest comparisons are generally anchored to events relevant to all the included companies. Those Terminal Tip could include a major court ruling MOST that affects an entire industry, or a Identify the most active historical high in the sector’s index. securities in any country, industry or index by Lacking that, it’s preferable to pick a percentage or net change, long-enough lens—such as a year— volume or value. so the effects of idiosyncratic events are smoothed out. Remember that some stocks are riskier than others. A stock that outpaces an important benchmark during a rally may have badly trailed the index during an earlier decline. (For more on writing about individual equities, see the Finding News section in Chapter 7, How We Cover Companies.)

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Style Reminders for Equities Calculate from the close. When describing a daily stock move, calculate the percentage and net change from the previous day’s closing price, not from today’s open. Be aware of intraday versus closing prices. Compare intraday prices and percentage changes with previous intraday data until the market closes. After trading stops, compare one close against another. Consider technical signals. Shares often move after they breach a price level of interest to chart watchers. Technical analysis refers to the industry of traders, analysts and investors who make judgments and forecasts on the basis of values plotted on a graph. Popular indicators include the relative strength index, moving averages and Bollinger bands. (See the Technical Analysis section in Chapter 4, How We Use Data.)

Debt Bonds are essentially loans made by investors instead of banks. The bond market is all about the companies, countries and agencies that borrow money and the institutions and individuals that lend it. Their decisions can determine the cost of money for all borrowers, from a first-time homebuyer to a small business seeking a loan. Bond Basics Terminal Tip

SECF Use the security finder to get a list of bonds sold by an issuer. Choose “Fixed Income” as your category and use the tabs and yellow boxes to narrow your search by currency or maturity.

When we write that bonds rose or fell, we are talking about the price. When making comparisons with the past or with other bonds, we focus on the yield, the annualized return investors are set to receive if they buy the bond at that price. One exception would be high-yield securities—often referred to as junk bonds—when the price is presented as being a number of cents on the dollar.

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A standard fixed-rate bond pays the owner annual or semi-annual interest referred to as the coupon. If a company pays $50 a year in interest on a bond that has a face value of $1,000, the coupon is 50/1000 = 5%. When a bond price fluctuates, the return on investment rises or falls because the coupon payment doesn’t change. In the preceding example, if you buy the same bond for only $800, the coupon is now worth more relative to your investment. In simple terms, the yield would rise to 50/800 = 6.25%. Bond prices are quoted above or below 100 as the face amount at which the coupon and yield are identical. Borrowers may price their bonds higher or lower than 100, depending on demand or market conditions. Bonds also have different maturities, and yields on bonds with longer maturities would typically be higher to account for the extra risk. Here is how we would write a daily price change: BN Style: Benchmark 10-year yields fell five basis points to 2.34 percent at 3:50 p.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader data. (Note that one basis point is equivalent to 0.01 of a percentage point.) BFW Style: Treasury 10-year yield falls 5bps to 2.34%, compared with declines of 3bps-6bps for most euro-zone 10-year yields Government Debt

We live in a world awash with debt. Almost half of it is issued by governments. Government bonds are not just an important investment vehicle. They also serve as an effective way to monitor a nation’s financial health. When a government’s outlook darkens or repayment risks increase, investors demand greater compensation to hold its securities, in the form of higher yields. Unchecked, a loss of confidence in debt markets can force changes in economic policy, topple administrations or unleash a systemic crisis. Sovereign securities also offer more subtle indications every day about policies being implemented by governments and central banks,

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the performance of the economy and the prospects for growth and inflation. Yield matters to ordinary citizens because it affects what they pay for mortgages, loans and credit cards. Globally, there’s about $200 trillion of debt outstanding from governments, banks, companies and households, almost three times the world’s gross domestic product. Some financial journalists are so focused on equities that they fail to appreciate the importance of debt markets. That creates an opportunity for reporters who make the effort to understand and cover the subject. Market reports on government bonds should zoom in on the most striking move on any given day, or the most significant commentary provided by someone with a stake in the market. Most often, our focus will be on a nation’s benchmark securities, usually 10-year debt, as we explain the reasons for their rise or fall and explore the context. German 10-year bond yields climbed to the highest level since January after the European Central Bank said it will reduce the pace of its monthly asset purchases to 60 billion euros from April. Terminal Tip

WB Monitor world bond markets on one screen. Compare yields across countries and see how these have changed during the past six months or year.

Take the time to explain the link between an event and a move in the market:

 ower central bank interest rates, L or data and commentary that point toward looser monetary policy, can push bond prices higher as borrowing costs decline. ●   Signs of quickening inflation can be bad for bonds. The reason: Increases in consumer prices diminish the purchasing power of debt’s fixed payments via coupons and return of principal. ●● Faster growth can hurt bonds because it boosts the relative appeal of stocks. Conversely, fixed-income assets appeal as a haven in times of turmoil because governments are likely to repay investors when the bonds mature. ●  

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Bond auctions can push prices lower if they increase the supply of debt. Likewise, the strength of demand at the sales can provide an indication of investor appetite for the bonds.

Sometimes it makes sense to focus on money market rates or notes with shorter maturities, because they are most susceptible to changes in central bank rates, or to focus on the longest-dated bonds, which react more to inflation. On other days, the most compelling market fact may be the yield gap, or spread, between bonds of different maturities, between one country and another, or between inflation-linked bonds and nominal securities. Focusing on these can reveal what the bond market is saying about the outlook for the economy, monetary policy or investment risk: Investors are demanding an extra 274 basis points of yield to hold 2017 securities instead of those due in 10 years. The widening gap signals that investors may be more worried about getting repaid in the short term.

Quotes should explain what’s happening in the market, what’s coming next, and, if possible, indicate what an investor is buying or selling, or what an analyst is recommending. “We’re seeing almost the best conditions ever for new issuance of convertible bonds,” said JP Mandich, the global head of convertibles trading at Nomura International Plc in London. “I’ve been telling all my people to get on the phone to their company contacts to highlight the opportunity, because it won’t last forever.”

The details in the price paragraph should reflect the maturities cited at the top of the story. Italy’s 10-year yield slid 12 basis points to 1.96 percent, after rising for five consecutive days, and that on Spanish securities with a similar due date dropped to 1.45 percent, from as high as 1.66 percent on Monday.

Weave returns on bond market indexes into the narrative to show how debt markets have performed over time.

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Terminal Tip

IN The Bloomberg Barclays Indices cover $50 trillion of debt. Use them to compare the relative performance of bonds from different countries and industries or with different credit ratings.

While the post-election selloff in the U.S. bond market has wiped out the year-to-date gains for taxfree state and local debt, taxable municipals still delivered a 5.07 percent return, Bloomberg Barclays indexes show.

As if bond markets weren’t complicated enough, yields on some securities fell below zero in the years after the global financial crisis. Or, put another way, investors holding such bonds until maturity would get less money back in total than they paid. Japan’s 10-Year Yield Drops Below Zero, a First for G-7 Nations The yield on Japan’s benchmark 10-year government bonds fell below zero for the first time, an unprecedented level for a Group of Seven economy, as global financial turmoil and the Bank of Japan’s adoption of negative interest rates drove demand for the notes.

Other markets to consider: Asset-backed securities: Mortgages, student loans, credit card debt and other assets can be packaged and sold, allowing lenders to remove debt from their balance sheet while offering investors a product backed by payments on thousands of underlying loans of varying credit quality. Collateralized debt obligations: CDOs, which featured prominently in the 2008 financial crisis, took the riskier pieces of asset-backed bonds and bundled them together to create new securities, most of which were given top credit ratings. Convertible bonds: Companies also can borrow by selling securities that have features of both debt and equity—meaning they offer a yield like a bond, but can be converted into equity if the stock reaches a certain predetermined level. Credit-default swaps: Investors who are concerned that debt may not be repaid can buy insurance in the form of swaps

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contracts. Sudden changes in CDS pricing can give clues as to changing perceptions of risk. Leveraged loans: When a private equity firm agrees to buy a company, it gets commitments from banks to finance much, if not most, of the transaction with a loan. The banks then syndicate the loan with other banks or institutional investors. The debt, known as a leveraged loan, is deemed the riskiest in the market because it usually leaves the acquired company with high debt loads relative to its earnings. Money markets: A highly liquid market for Treasury bills and commercial paper issued to meet the short-term funding requirements of government agencies, banks and large companies. Maturities typically range from a few days to one year and are purchased by investors looking for a safe place to park their cash. Companies use such debt to fund recurring expenses such as monthly payrolls or financing operations. Repurchase Agreements: Better known as repos. These are very short-term loans in which the borrower agrees to buy back the security the next day or within a few weeks. Syndicated loans: When a bank arranges a loan for a company, the debt is often then sold in pieces to other banks or institutional investors in the syndicated loan marTerminal Tip ket. Such debt, which is typically SRCH backed by the company’s assets, is Search Bloomberg’s bond generally first in line to be repaid database to find securities that meet your criteria. should the company default. (For more, see the Corporate Debt section in Chapter 7, How We Cover Companies.)

For example, list all Dim Sum bonds or high-yield securities sold by renewable energy companies.

Currencies Foreign exchange is the biggest of all financial markets, not least because many stock, bond or commodity transactions include a currency component. Gyrations in the value of the dollar, euro or yen

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affect trade, banking, investment and foreign travel. A currency is also a barometer for a country, the equivalent of its share price, and changes in its value have implications for every part of the economy. It’s also a market for which information and commentary abound. That’s why it’s vital for Bloomberg to stand out from our competitors with timely and authoritative stories. They need to give readers news they won’t get anywhere else. And they need to be both accessible enough for the layman and sophisticated enough to interest the expert. Foreign-exchange reporters need to seek out the most interesting thing that’s happening in the market that day, and cover it in an engaging way. So if there’s a big gain in a major exchange rate, explore and explain what changed that made investors buy or sell. There won’t be big swings every day. That’s when we shift our focus to the views of a well-informed trader or a significant move in currency options. A compelling currency story begins with a headline and lead that draws our audience into the narrative: Top Currency Trader Says Time Has Come to Lock in Dollar Gains The world’s biggest currency trader says the time has come to close out trades that benefited from the dollar’s rally. Euro Volatility Increases to 3 1/2-Year High as Greek Talks Fail

Terminal Tip

WCRS Track the relative performance of the currencies you care about. Include interest rate differentials in your comparisons or analyze how economic data influence foreign-exchange trading.

Price swings in the euro against the dollar increased to the highest level since 2011 after the latest negotiations on Greece’s bailout fell apart.

A good headline and lead are necessary but not sufficient. We must connect the dots between economic events and price swings, and develop the narrative by exploring additional currency pairs, market indicators or influences. Deploy data as supporting evidence—but don’t overload the text with numbers.

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The greenback has fallen against all of its 31 major peers in March, with Russia’s ruble and Brazil’s real posting the biggest gains, helping emerging market currencies to their best month in 18 years.

Reports on foreign exchange should include a price paragraph with a time stamp. Include the rate of the main currency pair (such as euro/dollar or pound/yen) that the story is focusing on, and quote currencies according to market convention. Calculate percentage change to make moves instantly comprehensible: The euro fell 0.2 percent to $1.0975 at 11:54 a.m. London time. Japan’s currency weakened 0.2 percent to 113.58 per dollar.

Choose graphics carefully. They’re especially helpful when providing historical context. As always, avoid charts that simply parrot what’s already in the text. See Figure 6.2 for an example of a useful chart. Support your stories with comments from authoritative voices. Give details of the funds they manage and what they’re doing with Tide May Be Turning for Rand South Africa’s currency has erased losses caused by December turmoil Rand slumps to record

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Figure 6.2 A chart showing shifting sentiment about South Africa

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their money. If you’re quoting analysts, explain what they’re advising their investors to do. Commodity currencies are off to the worst start to a year since the financial crisis amid signs of a slowdown in China. The Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars plunged against their U.S. counter­part as Bloomberg’s commodity index tumbled to a more than 13-year low. “I continue to maintain short positions in all three: Australia, Canada and New Zealand,” Alessio de Longis, a money manager in the Global Multi-Asset Group at OppenheimerFunds Inc., said. “Even if commodities were to stabilize, I think this weakness will feed into additional policy easing in these countries.”

Always place the day’s moves in the bigger picture. Look at the currency’s performance in a longer time frame, identifying the trend or the broader drivers behind its move. The euro has weakened 8.9 percent against the dollar this year, after a 12 percent decline in 2014, fueled by a divergence in monetary policy between the euro area and the U.S.

After publication, provide timely updates, especially important when markets reverse. Keeping abreast of the market wins the confidence of our disparate audience. And remember—be creative. Even a day devoid of price action can provide the impetus for a story, as this report shows: World’s Biggest Currency Trade Is Stuck in a Fed-Induced Rut Trading the world’s most widely used currency pair has become a thankless chore for investors. The dollar has been hovering around its short- and medium-term averages against the euro—near $1.10 per euro—since late June. An economic slowdown in China and a commodity rout have pushed the greenback higher this quarter versus most major peers. Yet it registered the smallest move in that time against the common currency amid signs of European growth, and expectations that the Federal Reserve will take its time in raising interest rates.

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“I don’t think there’s any reason to bother with it, to be honest,” Daniel Brehon, a New York–based strategist at Deutsche Bank AG, said about the euro-dollar trade.

Commodities Why do crowded rail lines in Canada lead to higher lentil prices in India? (They slow delivery to South Asia, reducing supply.) How does unrest in the Middle East influence employment in Texas? (It drives up fuel prices, increasing hiring in U.S. oilfields.) Why does demand for air conditioners in China affect currency valuations in South America? (The appliances use copper, an export that’s a driver for Chile’s economy.) That’s just a small window into how the world is connected through the production, consumption and trade of commodities. Bloomberg journalists need to understand commodity markets. That may seem obvious for reporters on beats like agriculture or energy. But the net should be cast more broadly. Commodities affect company profits. A jump in aluminum prices is likely to improve the outlook for Terminal Tip Alcoa Corp. and other producers. GLCO It may also hurt profit margins at The global commodities Boeing Co., which uses the metal portal offers a quick in aircraft, or at MillerCoors LLC, overview of price trends from crude oil to gold, and which needs the material for beer zinc to soybeans. cans. This example links the automotive business to a rare metal, palladium. North American auto sales have helped to boost demand for palladium, which is used in catalytic converters to curb harmful emissions. Auto sales in North America reached 1.5 million units in October, up 6.5 percent from the same month last year, after robust growth in 2013. Palladium prices are up almost 8 percent this year because of strong demand.

Here’s one that shows the impact of surging cotton prices on Gap Inc.

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Gap Inc., the largest U.S. apparel chain, reported a 19 percent decline in second-quarter profit as price increases failed to keep up with higher costs. Chief Executive Officer Glenn Murphy said that expenses per unit would rise 20 percent in the second half. Retailers are charging more for apparel because of surging cotton prices and increased pay for workers in China.

Companies can mitigate some of those price swings by locking in the price of commodities beforehand by buying futures contracts. But those hedges can become worthless if the price goes down. For example, in 2006, when oil hovered between $50 and $65 a barrel, Bloomberg reported this about Southwest Airlines Co. and its chief executive officer, Gary Kelly: The Dallas-based low-fare carrier is profitable because it isn’t paying full-market price for fuel, Kelly said. It saved almost $900 million because it hedged fuel last year at $26 a barrel, he said. This year, the airline is hedged at $36.

Ten years later, after oil plummeted to less than $30, the airline’s hedges were a problem, not a solution: Southwest contracts that lock in some rates in advance mean it paid 52 cents a gallon above the spot market. The airline has reduced socalled hedging for the second half of this year to cover 30 percent to 35 percent of its fuel use, down from as much as 70 percent.

Commodity prices influence events, but prices also can be influenced by external forces. That is, if an industry changes the way it makes a product (requiring more of a metal, for example), or if consumers start using less of a commodity (because of regulatory or health concerns), that can drive prices up or down. For example, demand for coal fell when consumers voiced concern about pollution at the same time that the price dropped for natural gas, a competing fuel. Those trends led to a bankruptcy filing for a company that had been in business for more than 130 years: U.S. coal giant Peabody Energy Corp. filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, the most powerful convulsion yet in an industry that’s enduring the worst slump in decades.

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Commodity prices often have significant implications for economies and governments. Nations that produce raw materials are often reliant on revenues generated from those goods, and price fluctuations can affect the countries’ employment, inflation and political stability. Here is an example from Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer: It’s been five months since Johnson Umeadi and his wife, Adaku, received their salaries as government workers in southeastern Nigeria. With Nigeria’s finances shot by last year’s collapse in oil prices, they’re struggling with rent and can’t afford school fees for their three children. Shops and grocers are no longer willing to extend them the credit they need to buy food and drinks. The plight of the Umeadis and others who haven’t received wages has hit everything from local shops to the banking industry in Africa’s biggest economy, in which about a third of the formal workforce of 11 million is employed by the state, according to Renaissance Capital. The cash crunch is undermining the prospects for the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who described the Treasury last month as “virtually empty.”

One nation’s pain can be another’s gain. Regions that are major commodity importers can feel the reverse impact of price movements. For example, surging wheat prices may bring revenue to agricultural regions in eastern Europe, while those higher prices can bring hardship to consumers, sparking protest. Here’s how Bloomberg has reported about the link between agriculture markets and civil unrest: World food prices as tracked by the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization more than doubled in the past decade. The U.S. State Department estimates surging food prices triggered more than 60 riots worldwide from 2007 to 2009. In 2011, rising grocery costs and corruption sparked political unrest across North Africa and the Middle East, ousting leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, the largest buyer of wheat.

Stories about commodities should show how prices move in relation to supply and demand. In addition to technical indicators,

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look for changes in production and consumption to understand why prices are rising or falling. It’s also important to explain the broader impacts of market movements. Finding connections that illustrate how commodities fit into the bigger picture draws a wider audience. Here’s an example of how changing commodity markets were used as a way of gauging global economic growth: Two thousand years ago, the haruspices of ancient Rome peered at animal entrails to divine the future. Today’s seers have refined the technique, searching for clues to the fate of the global economy— and the modern omens aren’t promising. A gauge of growth rates for raw materials including cattle hides, tallow, plywood and burlap has been signaling economic contraction since September. The last time the growth rate of the JoCECRI Industrial Materials Price Index was falling to these levels, the world was mired in recession. At the same time, the price-tracking Bloomberg Commodity Index is near a 12-year low, with bear markets for more than half of the 22 items it measures. “The decline in commodity prices is consistent with a prolonged period of slow global growth,” Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in an interview. “We may very well be accelerating in the months ahead, but evidence is hard to find in the data.”

Here are some additional themes for commodity coverage: Global news events. Anything that may increase risk to supplies—either in production or transport—is relevant. A political or military crisis in the Strait of Hormuz may disrupt tankers carrying oil from the Gulf States, sending prices higher. A trade pact between an industrialized country and commodity producers could lead to increased demand, production or both. Supply reports. Industry groups and government agencies report on current and future supplies of many commodities. If the reports show that supplies are higher or lower than expected, that can change prices. Commodity exchanges periodically report the inventory in their warehouses, which can also affect markets.

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Economic reports. Demand for some commodities rises and falls along with economic growth. An increase in housing starts can cause the price of copper to increase, because the metal is used in electrical wires and plumbing. Governmental actions. Regulatory or policy changes in countries that are major producers or consumers of a commodity can affect supply or demand. A refining company may shut down plants to make repairs that comply with government regulations, causing disruptions in supplies. Decisions by commodity organizations. Any change in production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has an immediate impact on oil prices. If the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation announces new forecasts for production, expect commodity traders to react immediately. Weather. If the weather’s just right, crops will grow in abundance. If it’s too hot, cold, wet or dry, they won’t. Prices often rise and fall because the temperature or rainfall differs from forecasts, or because the forecasts change. Longer-term trends. Reports from BNEF and BI can help identify emerging patterns. For example, innovations in wind or solar power can prompt shifts in commodity production. Sales of hybrid vehicles affect demand for lithium and other minerals used in batteries.

7 How We Cover Companies

In the course of reporting on Wal-Mart store closings, a Bloomberg retail reporter met a city council member in Long Beach, California, who told her a local Wal-Mart shut down because it had become a magnet for crime and a drain on local police. She cast a wider net and learned that the stories about Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that occasionally pop up as click-bait—the brawl in the aisles, the abduction in the parking lot, the meth lab in a store bathroom—aren’t just anomalies. She teamed with a colleague and they began trekking to WalMarts all over the country, interviewing victims, police officers, city officials, store managers and security guards. From there, the reporters built a database using public record requests, online crime records and local news reports. The conclusion: There is a serious violent crime every day at a U.S. Wal-Mart store. The reporting turned into the most-read story of 2016 on Bloomberg.com and ran on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. More than that, some citizens carried the magazine into public

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meetings with Wal-Mart representatives and demanded the company take action. This is how the best reporters ascend from merely witnessing scenes and rewriting press releases to shaping the corporate story. They break news, get executives and employees to talk, and anticipate the next developments. They turn mundane earnings stories into compelling narratives about strategy; they build deep source networks that cut them loose from the whims of a press department; they lay out the significance of an announcement in a flash. These reporters have expertise. Developing that requires a profound understanding of what makes companies tick. Some things are universal, others specific to an industry. (See Chapter 2, How We Report, for tips on learning a beat and developing sources.) The principle that drives Bloomberg’s corporate reporting is simple: Follow the money.This approach defines our news judgment, from earnings to deals to corporate strategy. Here are some tools to navigate corporate coverage, and help you develop from observer to journalist.

Earnings Think about earnings as a report card for companies. In addition to learning revenue and profit figures, you’ll find out which business units and regions fared well, and whether company goals were met or missed. Earnings reports can also provide access to executives, in the form of press conferences, calls or interviews. Before a company discloses results to shareholders, teams need to review the earnings history and any news that may have an impact on revenue and profit, such as commodity prices, acquisitions, personnel changes and economic trends. Functions such as ERN, EE and the FA financial analysis pages display a company’s earnings history and whether it has a record of beating or missing analysts’ estimates. You should also check BI’s Earnings Analyzer for business and profitability metrics. (Go to BI and search for “analyzer.”) Make a plan for coverage across platforms—if a big company is reporting earnings, we may set up a TOPLive blog and book television and radio guests to talk about the results.

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The first headlines and story typically compare profit and sales with the estimates or provide other Terminal Tip EE numbers that our audience needs urgently, such as forecasts. Share See an overview of earnings, movement may be an early indicator analyst estimates, multiples and other metrics. of whether an earnings report is perceived as positive or negative. Here are the first few headlines followed by the First Word item for Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s earnings: VALEANT 3Q ADJ EPS $1.55, EST. $1.76 VALEANT CUTS YR ADJ EPS FORECAST VALEANT SEES YR REV. $9.55B–$9.65B, SAW $9.9B TO $10.1B Valeant 3Q Adj. EPS $1.55 vs. Est. $1.76; Cuts Year Forecast Valeant sees 2016 adj. EPS $5.30–$5.50 vs. est. $6.49. •• Recognized goodwill impairment charge $1.05b •• VRX down 3.3% pre-market

Where possible, we automate these types of headlines and stories after establishing parameters that tell our computer programs which quarterly figures will be most important. For updates, we lead with the news most significant to investors and pivot quickly to move beyond the headline figures. Scrutinize announcements for surprises, both in the text and in the numbers on the income statement. Then scour the balance sheet, cash-flow statement and disclosures for hidden trends. News we may find in earnings releases, executive interviews or conference calls includes: ●●

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A forecast for earnings or sales or margins. These are often more useful to investors than the profit or loss figures. Comments on acquisition intentions, industry trends, economic effects, geopolitical developments, tax rates, capital expenditures, foreign-exchange swings and the direction of commodity prices.

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Numbers other than profit or loss that show how the company is performing. Consider key ratios such as gross margin, operating margin, sales per employee and inventory turnover. Many are standard for particular industries, such as occupancy rates for hotel companies, funds from operations for real estate companies and backlogs for defense contractors. Here’s how the Valeant earnings story developed: Valeant Slumps as CFO Warns ‘There Could Still Be Surprises’ •• Shares plunge 27% after Valeant cut forecast, 3Q fell short •• Writes down the value of U.S. businesses including Salix

After an already tumultuous year at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., the new management cut the annual profit forecast to well below estimates and suggested there may be more bad news on the way.

Terminal Tip

GE Graph price-to-earnings and other ratios for equities and indexes.

“There could still be surprises yet to be discovered,” new Chief Financial Officer Paul Herendeen told analysts in his first conference call to present quarterly earnings. “I’m not trying to alarm anyone or walk away from our revised guidance. I’m just letting you know that as time passes our confidence in our forecast and our guidance will improve.”

Here are more guidelines for earnings coverage: Read company releases with skepticism

The bull market of the 1990s and its dot-com bubble bequeathed a legacy of imprecise earnings reports. So-called cash earnings and Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, are among measures of financial performance that can confuse more than clarify. Beware of the labels pro forma, special, one-time and adjusted. All are warning flags that the earnings numbers may have been massaged to look better than they would under a standard presentation.

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Companies often try to disguise costs or expenses that are a regular part of doing business. Use a standard language

In the U.S., we almost always report on a company’s adjusted earnings per share first because analysts base their estimates on these figures. But companies often manipulate these numbers by stripping out certain expenses and charges. We need to include the bottom line in our reporting—otherwise known as net income or net loss— because it allows us to measure all companies by the same parameters, giving our global audience a uniform scale for comparison. Compare profit, per-share results and revenue with the year-earlier period, and give the percentage change for profit and revenue. Avoid suggesting that we are comparing profit in a quarter with fullyear profit. Rather than writing Widgets Inc. said first-quarter earnings increased 12 percent from last year, write Widgets Inc. said first-quarter earnings rose 12 percent from a year earlier. Use the most complete numbers available for rounding and for calculating percentages. Use active verbs such as rose, increased, fell or decreased when comparing profits, and widened, narrowed, deepened or shrank when comparing losses. When talking about a profit in one period with a loss in another, use compared with. Rather than use the word charge, try to find out what the company is writing down or writing off. Is it a cost, expense, investment loss, or something else? Focus on after-tax figures for special items. If after-tax amounts aren’t available, use pretax amounts and be sure they are clearly labeled. It’s acceptable to use a general term such as earnings, profit or loss in the lead of a story. In later paragraphs, provide a specific definition that makes the reference clear, such as net income or profit from continuing operations. Profit/loss from continuing operations should be used only when a company exits a business dissimilar from its main activity. Profit/loss from operations is reserved for the rare instance when a gain or loss is so extraordinary that it’s justified to present results excluding the item.

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Operating income/profit/loss is vague. Try to obtain the company’s definition of what is included and excluded in this measure and provide that to our audience. There may be several numbers labeled “net” at the bottom of the income statement. Look for the net income or net loss that is before payment of preferred stock dividends and after results for minority or noncontrolling interests. It’s usually called net income attributable to common shareholders. Use numbers sparingly

Putting a percentage change in the lead keeps numbers to a minimum and provides instant perspective. Actual figures can’t be read easily and don’t by themselves answer the central question of any earnings story: Did the company do better or worse, and why? Nomura Holdings Inc.’s second-quarter profit jumped 31 percent, beating analysts’ estimates as a surge in trading income made up for a slump in brokerage commissions and investment banking. Put the numbers into perspective

Context about earnings or sales—biggest increase in 10 years, first loss as a public company, eighth straight quarter of declining sales— explains why the news is unique. Steel Authority of India Ltd., the nation’s biggest producer, reported a fifth consecutive quarterly loss as a global glut of the metal continued to weigh on prices. Include company and industry context

What is happening to the industry? What is notable about this company or its performance? If it sells or buys a commodity such as oil or gold, describe how much the price rose or fell during the period. If competitors’ results were better than expected, say so, because that will affect the interpretation of the company’s results. A recovery in oil output and exports helped Petrobras reverse three quarters of straight losses as the Brazilian producer emerges from two years of graft investigations and falling crude prices.

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Study the financial statements

Net income is an important metric, but it’s not the only number that investors look for. The software industry may be more interested in license revenue, the aviation industry in orders and deliveries of aircraft, the retail industry in gross margin. U.S. companies must file their balance sheet and cash flow quarterly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and many countries have similar requirements. The balance sheet shows a company’s liquidity, shortages or surpluses in inventory or supply, whether liabilities are in line with assets and how much cash is on hand. The cash flow statement shows cash generation or depletion, and if the company is investing in its own stock, other companies or capital such as factories and warehouses. Provide the stock and bond prices

These will illustrate how investors view the results. How high to put the share price or the bond price in the story depends on the relative size of the move. A 5 percent change is small for some companies, large for others. Make it personal

Ask the great writers of fiction or nonfiction what makes a good story, and their answers will be characters and plot. Earnings stories that focus on the chief executive officer and the biggest shareholders are more complete and more interesting than a formulaic recitation of numbers. Even if profit and sales are unchanged, there’s a plot: Why has the executive failed to improve performance? Or, how has the person managed to keep the company from falling further? BT Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Gavin Patterson sought to distance himself from an accounting scandal in Italy that’s rocked the U.K. phone company, pointing the blame squarely on a few rogue employees and removing the head of European operations under whose watch the activities occurred. The impact of the 530 millionpound ($666 million) provision coursed through BT’s balance sheet on Friday, as the former U.K. telecom monopoly reported a 53 percent drop in profit.

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Deals If earnings reports are a way of checking up on companies’ financial health, deals are our window into their corporate strategy. Mergers and acquisitions are among the most important events in a company’s history. They affect employees, competitors, customers, suppliers and investors. Few events move the shares of a company more than M&A. M&A stories tell us a great deal about the state of an industry, the debt markets, economic trends and expectations, and CEOs’ talent and egos. Billions of dollars can ride on a deal’s success or failure, and our audience depends on us to help them understand who stands to gain or lose. Take the case of Syngenta AG, a Terminal Tip Swiss agricultural products company. MA In 2015, three Bloomberg reporters Compare valuation measures spent days tracking down rumors and with those in similar transactions. leads before publishing this scoop: China National Chemical Corp. is in talks to buy Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG in what would be the largest acquisition ever by a Chinese company, people with knowledge of the matter said. Syngenta shares gained the most in six months. ChemChina, as the state-owned company is known, offered about 449 francs a share in cash, which values Syngenta at 41.7 billion francs ($42 billion).

Syngenta’s shares surged more than 10 percent on Bloomberg’s exclusive, representing billions of dollars in market value. But our story did more than break news. It provided global context: As China’s economy has surged in recent years, its companies increasingly have been looking overseas for acquisitions. . . . The Swiss government has typically abstained from commenting on takeovers, and has sought to cultivate economic ties with China. Last year, Switzerland became the second European country after Iceland to

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sign a free trade agreement with China, stealing a march on European and U.S. rivals.

It explained how the deal would play into China’s domestic policy: Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to boost agricultural output to maintain self-sufficiency as a growing middle class consumes more grain-intensive meat and farmland is converted to housing and golf courses.

And it noted shareholder dissent over Syngenta’s future, affecting the company’s top management: Last month, Syngenta named Chief Financial Officer John Ramsay as provisional chief executive officer to replace Mike Mack, who quit suddenly. Mack faced shareholder criticism after he refused to engage in talks with Monsanto over its takeover approach. Syngenta rejected the bids for being too low.

Not all M&A stories are exclusives. Sometimes the news comes out in a press release, and alas, sometimes a competitor beats us. But whether or not we break the news, every M&A story raises crucial questions that we need to answer: Who is getting control? In most deals, one company takes over another. Rarely do two companies merge as equal partners, despite the press releases that make that claim. Try to find out which company will own a majority stake, who will serve as CEO and where the combined entity will be based. Those facts can help determine the buyer. What is the motivation? Don’t simply say the buyer wished “to expand” its market or workforce. Tell readers or viewers which geographical markets, or new technology, or other competitive advantages the company expects from the deal. Who pushed for this deal, and how did it come about? There’s often a colorful, nail-biting narrative. Did the CEOs meet at a conference in Idaho? Did an activist investor push management to consider an acquisition? How big will the CEOs’ payoffs

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be? Will one now be subservient to the other? Who are the board members, and have they been agitating for or against a deal? What is the value of the merger or acquisition? To figure this out, ask what shareholders of the target company get. If Company A acquires Company B, the value will be the sum that B’s shareholders receive, denominated in shares, cash or some combination of the two. If the companies merge, they usually exchange shares. (There’s more on this in the Valuation section further on.) Is a rival bid possible? Is there another company that might swoop in and try to scuttle the deal? One sign that investors may be anticipating a rival bid is when the share price of the target has risen above the agreed-on deal price. What are the prospects for regulatory opposition? Regulators typically review corporate combinations to ensure the enlarged company won’t harm consumers or thwart competition. What are the ramifications of the deal? Some deals are bigger than others and deserve more coverage. Among the top questions: What does it mean for the companies’ rivals? What does it say about the industry? What does this tell us about the CEOs’ records? Will regulators approve? Will jobs be lost? And, of course, what does it mean for investors? Who are the bankers and lawyers? How did they get both sides to the table (assuming it was an amicable offer)? How long did it take? How much will they be paid? Valuation

The valuation issue can be confusing, so let’s take a fictional example to examine some of the most common ways companies finance a deal. In this case, Mango Inc. wants to acquire Banana Corp. Mango has 40 million shares outstanding. Its last closing stock price before the deal announcement was $5. Banana has 6 million shares outstanding. Its last closing price was $8.

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Mango’s valuation is $200 million (40 million shares × $5). Banana is valued at $48 million (6 million shares × $8). Here are three ways Mango could buy Banana: ●●

Cash transaction: Mango offers $10 a share for Banana.

The formula: [Offer price per share × number of seller shares outstanding = purchase price] The calculation: $10 (offer price) × 6 million Banana shares = $60 million. Banana shareholders would get a $2, or 25 percent, premium for each share they own, based on the $8 closing price.

Check with the company to verify the number of shares outstanding. If the company isn’t responsive, use the most recent number found in the company’s press releases or regulatory filings, or look for the number on the company’s DES page on the terminal. Make sure you know the total number of shares and share equivalents involved. For companies that compensate employees with stock options, this figure can be much larger than shares outstanding. ●●

Stock transaction: Mango offers to swap 2 shares for every 1 Banana share. 

The formula: [Exchange ratio × buyer’s stock price] × number of seller shares = purchase price The calculation: [2 (the ratio) × $5 (Mango’s stock price)] × 6 million (number of Banana shares outstanding) = $60 million. When calculating the value of a stock transaction, use the buyer’s last closing share price. Unlike a cash transaction, the deal’s value will fluctuate with stock movements.

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Cash and stock transaction: Mango sweetens the stock deal with $4 a share extra cash.  The formula: [Exchange ratio × buyer’s stock price + cash] × number of seller shares outstanding = purchase price The calculation: [2 (the ratio) × $5 (Mango’s stock price) + $4 (cash) = $14] × 6 million (number of Banana shares outstanding) = $84 million.

In another scenario, the buyer and seller may agree to create a new company with new stock. Look at where the acquirer’s stock is trading to provide clues about valuation. It’s also important not to confuse the equity value of a deal (which involves the preceding examples) with the enterprise value, which factors a seller’s debt and cash into the purchase price. If Banana has $20 million in debt and accepts Mango’s $60 million cash offer, the enterprise value of the deal is $80 million. Be sure to ask which figure the company is providing. Bloomberg stories typically ignore debt for the headline figure but mention it as a separate line in the story. Value Comparisons

Once the headlines are out, use our expertise to tell readers and viewers whether this is a good deal for the buyer and/or the seller. Cite such measures as sales, profit or cash flow to help determine whether the buyer is paying a lot or a little. Then look at how that relates to peers and past purchases. When Pfizer Inc. attempted (and later abandoned efforts) to buy Botox maker Allergan Plc for more than $150 billion in 2015, a Gadfly column showed that the offer was 20 times Allergan’s projected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. It went on to say: That makes it one of the priciest companies in Big Pharma. Analysts say it may take about $400 a share to persuade Allergan to sell. At

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A Pricey Deal Allergan is more expensive than other speculated Pfizer targets Enterprise value relative to projected 2015 Ebitda 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 AGN

PRGO

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Source: Bloomberg

Figure 7.1 Compare valuations to put deals in context that price, you’re talking about a deal that’s not only the biggest for the health-care industry, but also one of the most expensive.

The column also included Figure 7.1 as supporting evidence. Putting an offer in context makes it easier to tell whether a purchase will ultimately be completed. In the hours and days after a deal is announced, show whether investors expect the offer to succeed or fail. A market price substantially above the offer price could indicate a higher bid is forthcoming, while a market price at a discount to the offer may foreshadow a failed bid. The spread between the market price and the offer price tends to narrow as a deal closing approaches. In addition to looking at where stocks are trading and a company’s relative value, M&A stories should examine historical examples. Use MA to analyze a deal as soon as it is announced. Filter your search by criteria such as the target industry or average premium to provide instant context. Note that the MA function includes debt in its deal prices.

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Our 2015 story on Samsonite International SA’s offer for upscale luggage maker Tumi Holdings Inc. showed that Samsonite had announced nine acquisitions since 2012, and that its proposed $1.8 billion purchase of Tumi was bigger than all of those. Samsonite International SA, the world’s largest branded-luggage maker, agreed to buy luxury baggage maker Tumi Holdings Inc. for about $1.8 billion in its biggest acquisition. . . . Samsonite has announced nine acquisitions since 2012 as it expands into distributing and selling other travel and non-travel bag brands, with plans to double annual sales to $4.7 billion in the six years ending 2020.

Readers also want to know a company’s track record on deals, which you can find by running BUYP. Have past purchases helped or hurt the company’s performance and investors? Microsoft posted its largest-ever quarterly loss in 2015, thanks in part to a $7.5 billion writedown related to its foundering purchase of Nokia’s handset unit. Finally, what other companies are targets? One purchase often leads to investor speculation that rivals may be bought. To find a company’s competitors, use the RV function.

Corporate Debt Most deals require some kind of financing. The same is true when a company needs to expand, whether that means building a new factory or hiring more workers. Credit is a company’s lifeblood, and no coverage is complete unless a reporter understands how easily a company can access it and whether the company will be able to repay it. The financial collapse of 2008 was followed by years of recordlow interest rates and easy central bank policies, which in turn fueled the credit boom. While some corporate debt still comes directly from banks as credit lines or loans, most is raised in capital markets. The more Bloomberg journalists understand about the credit system, the better they can understand the markets and company coverage. Reporters should cultivate debt investors and analysts as avidly as those who own or follow a company’s stock.

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Understanding bond prices

The market price of corporate (and government) debt rises when interest Terminal Tip rates—or yields—decline, and it falls DDIS when rates increase. But governChart the maturity profile ments in developed nations can print of a company’s outstanding debt. their own money and are generally considered safe bets. Corporate bond investors generally are at more risk of not getting their money back. And when that risk increases, we look at the spread, or the extra yield investors demand to own the bond instead of government notes with similar maturities. Here’s an example looking at price, yield and spread: In 2013, Verizon issued $11 billion of 10-year bonds that yielded about 5.2 percent. A U.S. Treasury bond with similar maturity paid 2.9 percent at the time, so the spread was about 2.3 percentage points. Within months of the company’s offering, Verizon’s securities were trading at 110 percent of face value (or as we say at Bloomberg, 110 cents on the dollar). Higher price means lower yield, so anyone who bought the company’s bond then was earning just 3.9 percent, or 1.3 points more than the similar U.S. Treasury security (which had declined to 2.6 percent). The spread had narrowed in large part because investors were gaining confidence that Verizon would generate ample cash to pay back the bonds (Figure 7.2). Sometimes, investors’ confidence in a company erodes. Oil and natural gas producer Samson Resources Corp. borrowed $2.25 billion in 2012, at a time when Wall Street was pouring money into the U.S. heartland to finance the nation’s shale-drilling boom. When Samson issued its debt, oil was trading for more than $100 a barrel, and investors who bought the debt demanded about 8.2 percentage points more than Treasuries to own the securities—a typical spread for a company with similar junk ratings at that time. When oil plunged two years later, so did the confidence of the company’s creditors. By the time crude slumped below $50 a barrel, investors

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Yield Spread Narrows as Perceived Risk Shrinks Verizon 10-year bond yield

U.S. Treasury 10-year yield 5.5%

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Figure 7.2 Bond yields show how investors view risk were demanding spreads of 50 percentage points. Samson filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2015. Bloomberg reporters need to understand these issues, even if the credit market isn’t their chief focus. Widening spreads often signal trouble before it becomes evident in a stock price. Holders of Enron Corp. and Eastman Kodak Co. debt caught Terminal Tip the scent of trouble before stock invesFIRV tors did. As the U.S. housing market started to implode in 2007, bank Compare a company’s bond yield with benchmark shareholders looked to credit markets government debt. Analyze for indications of which lenders were changes in perceived risk. most exposed to risky mortgages.

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Things to consider when covering a company’s debt: When a company says it plans to make an acquisition or sell a division, ask management: How are you going to pay for this?

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What will you do with the proceeds? The answer may affect the company’s bonds even more than the stock price because it can send signals to creditors that a company is willing to pile on more debt and strain its creditworthiness. Trends that make the company more likely to keep its commitments to bondholders—such as rising market share or currency changes that boost earnings—will make bondholders feel more comfortable. A slump in sales or a new management team that wants to borrow to boost its share price may make bondholders nervous. Also check to see if the company has any government backing—explicit or implicit—that could help noteholders recover funds in a default. Companies may say they are repaying bondholders more rapidly or more slowly than expected. They may also issue new debt at lower rates to cut their interest payments. A company that is spending more on investments in factories or equipment may need to borrow more, which may result in lower market prices for the bonds as investors become more concerned about the company’s ability to manage the debt. When a company issues a bond or loan, a credit-ratings company may assess its ability to repay the debt and then assign a grade to the bonds. Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings are the two biggest raters. On S&P’s scale, grades can range from AAA for the companies deemed most creditworthy to as low as C for the borrowers considered highly vulnerable to default. Comparable grades at Moody’s range from Aaa to C. The grades are important because many investors are required to buy only investment-grade debt or higher-rated junk debt.

Writing about debt

The tens of trillions of dollars of outstanding corporate debt globally give Bloomberg reporters the chance to write about some of the biggest winners and losers in the financial world. There was no greater example of this than Texas power producer TXU Corp., which was taken private in 2007. Private equity firms KKR & Co. and TPG

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Capital, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. loaded the company with almost $50 billion of leveraged loans and junk bonds. After gas prices plunged, the company, which was renamed Energy Future Holdings, teetered toward one of the biggest bankruptcy filings in history. Weeks before the April 2014 filing, Bloomberg reporters wrote it this way: Everything about the deal is as big as Texas—biggest leveraged buyout ($48 billion), biggest energy bankruptcy (a possible $45.6 billion, bigger than Enron Corp.) and a big loss for Terminal Tip Henry Kravis, George Roberts, David CAST Bonderman and Lloyd Blankfein, who View a company’s capital bought the company formerly known structure, including parents as TXU Corp. Its tanking resulted from and subsidiaries. See where an unprecedented drop in natural gas investors have recourse to prices and the debt they loaded onto the parent company. the back of Energy Future. To quote Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. lost $873 million on its $2 billion bond investment: “Big mistake.”

Our job is to make the topic of corporate finance transparent and accessible to our audience. Reporters should use the debt market to gauge a company’s health. When management becomes aggressive about borrowing, ask investors and analysts whether it’s taking on too much leverage and whether projected future cash flows will be enough to service the debt.

Finding News Terminal Tip

SPLC Find a company’s suppliers and customers. Analyze the supply chain for potential winners and losers as a company’s fortunes change.

Outside of earnings, deals and debt, companies make all kinds of other news. Stocks rise and fall, CEOs come and go, and factories open and close. It’s up to beat reporters to assess the significance of corporate announcements and cultivate sources who can tell them what’s going to happen next.

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Suppose the company you cover is introducing a major product. Bloomberg’s audience wants to know what that means for the company’s direction and its bottom line. So you’ll want to find out such critical elements as: ●●

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What’s the size of the market, who are the likely customers, and where does this fit into the company’s overall strategy? Where will it be manufactured, and what does that mean for the price of labor, raw materials and other costs? Which other companies manufacture something similar, and how well does this new product address the competition? How is the company financing the investment needed to build and market this product?

Sometimes the news is tricky to uncover. Corporate press releases can be a wall of irrelevant numbers and anodyne quotes, designed to bury the news. Don’t emulate that style. Choose which numbers or facts will drive your story. Make the data accessible to your readers. Here’s the beginning of an Intel Corp. press release: Intel Corporation today announced a restructuring initiative to accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices. Intel will intensify its focus in high-growth areas where it is positioned for long-term leadership. . . . Growth businesses delivered $2.2 billion in revenue growth last year, and made up 40 percent of revenue and the majority of ­operating profit. That was followed by several sunny quotes from the CEO, until the company added this in the seventh paragraph: These changes will result in the reduction of up to 12,000 positions globally—approximately 11 percent of employees—by mid-2017. Fortunately, our story got right to the point with this lead: Intel Corp., the world’s biggest maker of semiconductors, said it will cut 12,000 jobs, or 11 percent of the workforce, retrenching as the personal computer market heads toward a fifth year of decline.

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You also need to add context. Functions tied to the FA financial analysis pages can help you study a company’s business. For example, FA GEO shows a breakdown of sales by geography, FA PROD displays product lines, and FA EMP provides employee data. Movers

Detecting and explaining significant stock moves are essential parts of following the money. Sometimes it’s obvious why a stock is moving. A prominent analyst raises her rating on the company, prompting a sharp rise. Or the company discloses accounting irregularities or other issues, and the price plummets. Here’s how we explained a 35 percent drop in LendingClub Corp.’s stock. LendingClub Corp. plunged after an internal review found abuses tied to the sale of loans and a failure to disclose a personal interest in an investment fund, leading to the departure of Chief Executive Officer Renaud Laplanche.

Often, the reasons for the move aren’t so clear, and this is where knowledge and sourcing come in. We set up alerts for unusual movements and higher-than-average volume, but the real value comes in reporting out the reason behind the move. Along with mining sources, using the terminal can help explain price moves that aren’t obvious. The Terminal Tip TREN function measures investor MOV interest in a particular stock, whether View the best- and worstthat’s on the terminal or on Twitter. performing companies on any equity index. For View posts about any company on example, SPX Index MOV Twitter by adding CN TWT after a for the S&P 500. company ticker. Check Bloomberg Intelligence company profiles with BICO and industry profiles on BIP. And determine whether a company’s rivals are also moving by using the relative value function RV. (See the Technical Analysis section in Chapter 4, How We Use Data, for more reasons a stock might be moving.)

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Bloomin’ Brands Inc., owner of Outback Steakhouse, rose the most in more than two months after reaffirming its full-year profit forecast in a stagnant restaurant industry. The stock climbed as much as 8.9 percent to $18.92, marking the biggest intraday gain since Feb. 12. Casual dining competitors, including Brinker International Inc., operator of Chili’s Grill & Bar, have recently posted disappointing results. Chili’s same-store sales dropped 3.6 percent in its most recent quarter. That’s worse than Outback’s 1.3 percent decline. Ruby Tuesday Inc. lowered its full-year earnings guidance earlier this month.

Stock prices aren’t the only way to capture the market’s reaction. A credit-rating upgrade or downgrade may be better reflected in a company’s bonds than in its stock. Reporters need to cover a company’s credit profile, its debt-maturity calendar and its financing needs, along with corporate actions like the sale of bonds that can be converted into stock. Bonds of Concordia International Corp., the Canadian drugmaker whose debt load has increased more than 14-fold since 2014, plunged after it reported third-quarter results that missed analysts’ estimates and suspended its forecast.

Terminal Tip

CRPR View the credit-rating profile of any listed company.

As always, context is vital. Is this the largest upswing in a year? Use superlatives to explain a move, giving the reader a better understanding by pointing out when the stock was last this high or low. In any case, get the share price high into the story. Unipetrol AS slumped the most in seven years after the Czech oil refiner’s dividend proposal fell short of expectations. The stock closed at 177.15 koruna in Prague, the worst performance on the benchmark PX equity index.

Context & Valuation No matter whether you’re writing a First Word item or an investigative feature for Businessweek, the more meaningful context we can provide, the better.

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It’s not enough to say that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. operates discount supermarkets. Most readers and viewers know that. Better to say it’s the world’s largest company by revenue, or that it has almost 12,000 stores around the world. Above all, think about the context of your story and then choose the most appropriate size and scope. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. is Taiwan’s largest company by sales. But it might be just as important to note that it’s the Taipei-based assembler of iPhones, or a company that gets half its revenue from Apple Inc., or the largest part of billionaire Terry Gou’s Foxconn Technology Group. Include the city where the main company in the story is based or does most of its business. Don’t assume our readers and viewers know that Samsung Electronics Co. is Korean, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. is Japanese or Siemens AG is German. We normally define size by sales. If we’re defining by any other measure—such as assets, market value, number of subscribers or employees—give the measure in the story. But don’t get carried away. Telling readers that a company is the “12th-largest tin importer in Asia” isn’t especially meaningful. Our audience typically will care far less about a $10 million deal than a $10 billion deal. A 1 percent stock move will be less exciting than a 10 percent drop. A promotion for a divisional head will draw less interest than the firing of a CEO. Valuation

Once we have a compelling size and scope, it’s time to go deeper. The best beat reporters track the performance of the companies they cover by monitoring and analyzing various financial measures. There are hundreds of these, some applicable to all companies, others specific to an industry. None should be viewed in isolation. Rather, to understand how well or poorly a company is performing, each financial ratio should be viewed over time and compared with rivals. Here are 10 key performance indicators for corporate reporting. On the Bloomberg Terminal, these indicators can be seen on the FA, financial analysis, pages. To compare a company with its peers,

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view the RV, relative value, and EQRV, equity relative valuation, functions. Price/Earnings Ratio. Current share price divided by annual earnings (net income) per share. The P/E ratio shows how much investors are willing to pay. A high number indicates investors are betting on a company’s growth prospects, while a low P/E can denote the equity is considered “cheap” relative to its past and its peers. If Microsoft Corp. trades at $60 and its EPS for the last 12 months was $3 a share, the P/E is 20. Rather than citing the last four quarters, we often look at estimated earnings for the next four quarters, or the estimated P/E. To graph the P/E ratio on the terminal, use the GE function: MSFT US GE. To see the P/E of equity indexes, go to WPE. Terminal Tip Uni-Select Inc. remains the cheapest stock on a price-earnings basis among 11 peers in a Bloomberg Intelligence index. Its estimated P/E ratio, based on the next 12 months, is 19, compared with an average of 23 for the index.

GRE Compare a company’s price/ earnings ratio with the P/E of an index. See when a company’s stock trades at a discount or premium relative to the index.

Operating Margin. Operating profit as a percentage of sales. A decline in the operating margin suggests growth in expenses without a similar increase in revenue. While Tata Motors swung to a profit in the three months through September, the company’s operating profit margin narrowed to 2.81 percent from 4.72 percent in the previous three months.

Profit Margin. Net income as a percentage of sales. The higher, the better. If the operating margin is robust, a decline in the profit margin may indicate an increase in interest, tax or extraordinary expenses. Nokia Oyj dropped 3.8 percent after predicting a 2017 profit margin for its main business that trailed estimates.

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Sales per Employee. Revenue generated by each employee. A measure of a company’s efficiency and productivity, this ratio often indicates whether companies are overstaffed compared with peers. Note that this gauge doesn’t include contract or outsourced workers. Without premium cabins or bag fees, Southwest lacks competitors’ revenue options. Sales per employee of $104,900 are the lowest among the five biggest U.S. airlines, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Return on Equity. Net income divided by total equity. The measure shows how well a company used reinvested profit to generate additional earnings. The higher, the better. A ROE of 25 percent means investors are receiving $1.25 back from the company for each dollar they invested. Russia’s Sberbank PJSC brushed off an economic contraction and years of sanctions by reporting a return on equity of more than 20 percent in the three months through September. Rate increases will help improve returns at the company’s U.S. business, National Grid said. The return on equity for the year is expected to be about 8 percent.

Debt-to-Equity Ratio. Total debt divided by common equity. Also known as leverage or gearing. A debt-to-equity ratio of 80 percent means the company has liabilities of 80 cents for each dollar of its shareholders’ money. A high ratio may raise questions about whether the company can repay creditor claims in the event of liquidation. Softbank’s total debt-to-equity ratio rose to about 4.6 times at the end of September from three times a year earlier.  Hyundai Heavy plans to cut its debt-to-equity ratio to 80 percent from the current 134 percent.

Current Ratio. Current assets divided by current liabilities. Shows a company’s ability to pay its short-term obligations. A high ratio is usually better. Also known as the liquidity ratio.

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Seker’s current ratio, which measures the ability to repay short-term debt, was 0.84 at the end of the third quarter of 2012, compared with 0.83 a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Dividend Payout Ratio. Percentage of profit paid to shareholders in cash. A low ratio usually indicates a growth company. Zurich Insurance will also target a dividend payout ratio of 75 percent of net income after tax, the firm said in a statement on Thursday. Japan Airlines, which announced a share buyback plan last month, aims to boost its dividend payout ratio to 30 percent as early as next financial year, Norikazu Saito, the carrier’s head of finance, said in an interview in Tokyo Tuesday.

Inventory Turnover Days. The number of times a company sells and replaces its inventory in a given period. A high rate indicates excess inventory, which companies sometimes reduce by slashing prices. Accounts Receivable Days. Average number of days it takes a company to collect payments due. The lower, the better. A rise in accounts receivable days may indicate a company is having difficulty managing its money.

Corporate Equity Initial Public Offerings & Startups

Performance indicators are especially important when a company is about to go public. We can use the terminal to tell potential investors whether the stock being sold is cheap, expensive or fairly valued. First get the price-earnings mulTerminal Tip tiple for the company, using the IPO proposed share price and per share Search the initial public earnings cited in the company’s proofferings database for company valuations across spectus. Then compare that with the industries and regions. Rank multiples of the whole industry and underwriters and other competitors. A number higher than advisers.

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those of rivals means the IPO is more expensive. A lower number means the offering is less expensive. For companies that don’t have earnings, use an alternative measure that’s followed in that industry, such as comparing the stock’s price as a multiple of sales, cash flow or enterprise value, which is the value of a company’s equity, minority interests and preferred shares minus its cash and cash equivalents. Stepping back, let’s consider some IPO basics. Stories need to include the percentage of the stake for sale and who is selling. Include how much money was raised and the market value of the entire company. Don’t forget to identify the banks that led the offering and the exchange or exchanges the stock will be listed on. Canada Goose Set for Debut With Richest Luxury Valuation Canada Goose Holdings Inc., the maker of $900 parkas worn by celebrities from Toronto rapper Drake to Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista, is going public with a richer valuation than any other luxury retailer in the world. The Toronto-based retailer raised C$340 million ($256 million) in its initial public offering, pricing the shares at C$17 apiece, above the marketed range of C$14 to C$16 a share, according to a statement Wednesday. At the IPO price, the company has a market value of about C$1.82 billion. That valuation would give Canada Goose a price-to-earnings multiple of 45.5 times, using conservative growth estimates, making it the highest among luxury goods companies, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst  Maja Rakic  wrote in a note  Thursday. That number puts it ahead of  Hermes International’s  37.2 times and Brunello Cucinelli SpA’s 33.5 times, she wrote. The shares will start trading Thursday, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GOOS. Canada Goose is backed by  Bain Capital, which will continue to own a controlling interest in the company following the IPO, according to the prospectus. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and RBC Capital Markets managed the offering.

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This type of information is found in the deal prospectus that companies file with local regulators. For U.S.-based businesses listing on local exchanges, the filing is called an S-1. These thick documents are also filled with information like what the proceeds will be used for, detailed financials, risks to the business and the current ownership structure. Once a company files an S-1, it enters what’s called a “quiet period” where management isn’t allowed to tout its stock. The offering officially begins when the company files an amended prospectus naming the number of shares to be marketed and at what share price range. Then management meets with investors on what’s called a “roadshow,” the final price and number of shares sold is decided based on investor demand, and the shares start trading. Covering IPOs isn’t just about writing up information from filings, especially when it comes to the biggest companies going public. Through cultivating sources, the aim is to break news on the details of the offering and how management wants investors to think about the company before it’s revealed in public filings. But before companies hold an IPO, they usually seek funds from other channels. Startups are staying private longer as a result of the falling costs of starting a business and an abundance of funding from existing venture capital firms and new entrants, such as investment banks, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds. U.S. regulatory changes have also made it easier for startups to raise capital from individual investors. These funding developments lend insight into the opaque world of private valuations, venture firms Terminal Tip and the innovations that have the BSTARTUP greatest potential to disrupt indusDES tries and change the way we live The Bloomberg U.S. Startups and work. Our coverage can also be Barometer is a broad essential to investors considering measure of startup activity, comprising capital raised, whether to join the private funding deal volume, first financings frenzy or buy shares in an eventual and the number of exits. public offering.

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Case in point: Bloomberg broke the news in late 2015 that Uber was raising billions of dollars in a financing round that would make it the world’s most valuable private company. Uber Said to Seek $2.1 Billion Funding for a $62.5 Billion Value Uber Technologies is looking to raise as much as $2.1 billion in a financing round that would value the car-booking company at $62.5 billion, said people familiar with the matter. Uber has filed paperwork in Delaware detailing the fundraising plans, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private.

The story was a model of our venture capital and startup coverage because it answered the following questions: How much money is being raised, and at what valuation? Startups face a conundrum when seeking funding. A high valuation can be desirable, but it can also come with conditions, such as giving funders more ownership or provisions that protect investors from share dilution. Too lofty a valuation can also be hard to sustain. In some cases it is followed by a so-called down round, wherein the startup seeks funding at a lower valuation. Who’s investing? Startups often seek to broaden their investor pool while also keeping existing shareholders in the mix. When an early investor doesn’t partake in a later round, it can be a sign of lost confidence in the founder or management team. The decision to take a stake in a startup can also lend insight into the investor’s strategic thinking. How will the startup use the investment? New companies often spend aggressively on hiring, product development and expansion into new markets. A lavish marketing campaign can sometimes be a red flag, suggesting that a company is having difficulty winning new customers on word of mouth or brand recognition alone. How is the startup performing? Fledgling companies provide would-be investors with insight into their finances. The reporter should try to get a peek at the pitch the company makes to potential backers.

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Repurchases & Dividends

Public companies can choose to reward investors by buying back their shares or paying dividends. The purchases reduce the amount of available stock and may boost earnings per share. Stories about repurchases ought to spotlight the percentage of shares a company will buy back. The news in a buyback usually isn’t the absolute number or dollar value of shares to be purchased. When a company has 120 million shares outstanding and decides to buy back 30 million to thwart a takeover bid, the story should note on first reference that the company plans to buy 25 percent of its shares. If a company says how many shares it plans to buy back, include the percentage of shares outstanding the company may purchase. If a company says how much it plans to spend on the buyback, figure out how many shares that amount would buy at the current price. Then figure the percentage of shares outstanding that the buyback represents. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada’s second-largest bank by assets, set aside C$1 billion ($971 million) to repurchase 12 million shares, or 1.3 percent of its stock, starting next month, the first common-share buyback since 2006.

Companies that make a profit can pay that money to shareholders as a dividend or invest the earnings in their business by making acquisitions, buying equipment, expanding research, etc. Many companies do both. Publicly traded companies usually pay dividends on a fixed schedule, such as annually, twice a year or each quarter. Sometimes they pay a special, one-time dividend or pay the dividend in the form of new stock. Cutting or omitting the dividend is a signal of change, and it typically happens when the company needs to conserve cash. The top of the story should focus on the percentage increase or decrease of the dividend and explain why. Then provide the amount of the new and old dividends and note when shareholders will be paid. Use DVD for context on how many times the company has increased or cut its payout. The BDVD function provides dividend forecasts from Bloomberg analysts.

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The dividend increase gives Microsoft an indicated yield of 3.4 percent, providing one of the largest payouts among technology stocks. Intel Corp.’s 3.8 percent, 12-month indicated yield makes it the only U.S. technology company with a market value of more than $100 billion that pays more on that basis.

8 How We Cover Economies & Governments

Economy and government are inextricably linked to the world of business and markets, and these ties became painfully obvious at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. On Dec. 5 of that year, the U.S. Federal Reserve loaned $1.2 trillion to prop up a banking system on the verge of collapse. That was for a single day. Add assistance to other institutions and market guarantees, and the total over time would eventually swell to $7.7 trillion. Bloomberg was the first to report that one-day tally, and it wasn’t easy to get. The Fed refused to cooperate. It said that releasing the names of borrowing banks would stigmatize them, causing depositors to withdraw their money and lenders to demand their money back. So Bloomberg sued the central bank, and after a long legal battle, the Supreme Court ordered the Fed to release its bailout details. That kind of determination and its resulting transparency forms the basis for how we think about covering government decisions and

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economic policy. Above all, our coverage should aspire to be unique to Bloomberg by keeping a laser-like focus on the things that matter to our audience.

Economies The story of an economy is far more than a recitation of statistics. It’s a constantly evolving narrative about a range of information— from the rates that homeowners pay for their mortgages to longterm hiring plans for companies across the globe. It’s also the story of nations—their rise and fall, and their relative dynamism. In an increasingly integrated world, the data and reports published by governments, central banks and industry groups provide important insights into what goods and services people are making, selling and buying. Every day, our readers, viewers and listeners are confronted by a barrage of numbers about the Terminal Tip jobs market, inflation, trade, interECO est rates and business conditions. To View survey data, actual make sense of this data deluge, we data, time of release and the must first decide which numbers are relevance of any economic indicator around the world. priorities. After that, our goals are twofold: ●●

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Immediately report the data and compare them with economists’ forecasts to highlight the possible impact on the markets. Provide the context to explain what the statistics mean for companies, traders, governments and the public.

In most major economies we report on the following key performance indicators: gross domestic product, consumer and wholesale prices, trade, unemployment and jobs creation, industrial production, central bank interest rates, retail sales, consumer and business confidence, and housing prices and starts. These, and others, can be found on the terminal’s ECO function, which lists the relative

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importance of the information, the time period, the results of the Bloomberg survey on each indicator, and the actual data. This is how we report on the figures: GDP: Focus on the quarteron-quarter, or QoQ, statistics. This means we report one quarTerminal Tip ter compared with the previous IFMO quarter, such as July-September Monitor target inflation rates compared with April-June. GDP and forecasts by country can also be compared year-onand region. year, e.g., July-September relative to July-September a year earlier. Note that standard measurements can differ from country to country. Monthly data: For reports such as consumer prices, economists often pay more attention to the month-on-month, or MoM, numbers (June versus May) than to year-on-year even though the months may have a different number of days. That’s because most data from the largest economies are seasonally adjusted for the time of year, the number of days, weekends and holidays. Here’s how we wrote about Brazil’s consumer prices on Bloomberg First Word in November 2016: Brazil October CPI Rises 0.26% M/m; Est. 0.29% National statistics agency releases IPCA, Brazil’s benchmark inflation index, in Rio de Janeiro. •• Forecast range 0.23% m/m to 0.39% from 46 economists •• CPI up from 0.08% m/m in September •• CPI 7.87% y/y vs. 8.48% a month ago; est. 7.91% •• Food and beverage prices –0.05% m/m vs. –0.29% a month ago •• Transportation prices 0.75% m/m vs. –0.10% a month ago

When the data aren’t seasonally adjusted, as in some emerging markets, the ECO pages say “nsa” (not seasonally adjusted). In

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that situation, we compare year-on-year data. Note also that when comparing actual results with forecasts, we use the median forecast rather than the average. (See Chapter 4, How We Use Data, for more on median and average.) Preparation is essential. Since we usually know when economic indicators will be released, we write stories in advance that focus on what will happen if the numbers are above, below or in line with the forecasts. For example, when the U.S. Labor Department announces that jobs are being created faster, or slower, than economists’ forecasts, we should consider how this will affect interest rates and what it may mean for wages, consumer demand, the dollar, equities and government bonds. Sometimes we need to change gears quickly when circumstances demand. Don’t be afraid to abandon the template. Here’s how we covered the influTerminal Tip ECFC ential U.S. non-farm payrolls indicator in July 2016: View economic forecasts of any country by economists, governments, central banks and official institutions.

America’s job market stirred to life in June as payroll growth accelerated by the most since October after a twomonth lull, assuaging fears of broader cutbacks by companies.

Payrolls climbed by 287,000 last month, exceeding the highest estimate in a Bloomberg survey, after a revised 11,000 gain in May, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 180,000 increase. The jobless rate rose to 4.9 percent as more people entered the labor force. Wages advanced less than projected.

When China’s economy stumbles, we should explore what that news might mean for its trading partners in, say, Southeast Asia or Africa. When Ireland posts the fastest growth rate in the euro zone, we need to let our audiences know how that compares with past years, or with other countries.

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Here are some guidelines for robust economic coverage: Find the experts

Quotes from respected economists strengthen our coverage. Consider voices with a track record and authority. For example, a story about the Bank of Japan may be enhanced by quotes from an economist who once worked at that institution. A quote from someone outside Japan with no connection to the country may diminish our narrative. Remember that economists aren’t gods. They, too, make mistakes. Call them on it when appropriate. Don’t forget the financial markets

Movements in stocks, bonds or currencies help explain the impact of a bank governor’s statement or of trade data. But be aware that correlation may not mean causation. On any given day, investors may be responding to something other than a release of economic data.

Terminal Tip

STAT View macroeconomic, markets and commodities data, including decades of GDP data on the Global Economy Watch (GEW).

Not all useful economic data come from governments

Cast a broad net for reliable sources. Websites that provide job listings can tell you a lot about the employment market: Are more engineers being hired in Brazil? Are fewer financial jobs being posted in Europe? Credit card data can be a useful barometer for consumer spending, while universities produce some of the most authoritative economic research. Data for Figure 8.1, which ran in our Benchmark economics blog, came from the Trulia.com website, which tracks housing sales in the U.S. Always evaluate the relevance of your data

A government report that may once have been significant can fade in importance. The quarterly current account balance, for example, used to mean much more for U.S. readers than it does now.

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Dwindling Options Housing stock in U.S. cities has dropped the most among the cheapest properties Q1 2012

Q1 2016 600k 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Starter

Trade-up

Premium

Source: Trulia Note: Figures re ect housing stock in 100 largest U.S. metro areas.

Figure 8.1 Economic data don’t only come from government reports Keep the central bank in mind

Make connections between economic news and central bank policy. Traditionally, a number that is weaker than forecast is a sign that an economy is slowing and an argument for a central bank to increase stimulus. But don’t make too much of a divergence from forecasts. If economists expect job growth to hit 200,000 and the reported figure is 190,000, that difference is statistically and practically insignificant. Used wisely, comparisons with forecasts enhance our stories. An overly simplistic or literal approach can damage our credibility. Write with authority

Few news organizations attend as many central bank events as we do. Few monitor the array of economic indicators we do. Share that knowledge with readers and viewers and help them answer the question: “How should I think about this event?” Check the terminal

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for data and research on economies, rates and currencies, as well as individual countries and regions. Back up stories with anecdotes

Economy stories carry more authority when they include comments from company executives, industry groups and regular people. Such voices break through the jargon that comes from many economists. For example, this story about high unemployment in Europe has more impact because it includes individuals whose lives are affected. Maria Cunha, a 22-year-old Portuguese civil engineering student, is about to work abroad for the first time in her life. She sees her sixmonth stint as a waitress in a Cyprus hotel as a route to developing the soft skills such as English language and teamwork that she needs to improve her longer-term employment chances. “Finding a job in my field is very difficult in Portugal,” Cunha said. “With this experience, I think it’ll be easier for me to move to another country.” A picture is worth . . .

Would you want to read a story that includes a paragraph like this? Unemployment in Spain, which is over 20 percent this year, was under 10 percent from 2005 to 2008. Meanwhile, in Germany, unemployment is under 5 percent but surpassed 10 percent more than 10 years ago.

Instead, you can display those data points and more in a chart like Figure 8.2 on the next page. It provides readers a bird’s-eye view of unemployment rates in many parts of Europe. Similarly, Figure 8.3 shows how Nigeria is expanding trade with South Africa, its largest partner on the continent. Consider the political climate

Are opposition parties increasing pressure on the government over inflation? Are job losses triggering public protests? Are ties between nations or trading blocs getting strained?

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Farther Apart Euro-area unemployment rates diverged after crisis Euro-area

Spain

Portugal

Germany

Netherlands

25%

20

15

10

5

’98

’00

’02

’04

’06

’08

’10

’12

’14

’16

Source: Bloomberg

Figure 8.2 Line charts can make trends clearer than a batch of numbers Nigeria's Growing Trade Strength Exports to South Africa have more than doubled since 2008 $6.0B 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Source: International Monetary Fund

Figure 8.3 Bar chart showing Nigeria’s trade with South Africa

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Here’s an example of how to explore the political economy: Rioting that killed more than 15 people is symptomatic of a bigger problem for Prime Minister Narendra Modi: How to create enough jobs for India’s enormous youth population. Modi called in 5,000 security personnel over the weekend after members of India’s Jat community set ablaze shopping malls, blocked roads and attacked government offices in Haryana, a state north of Delhi. The disruption cut off part of Delhi’s water supply, and car maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. had to temporarily shut some factories due to disruption in supplies. “This disenchantment has been growing in the past decade because increased growth has not resulted in increased job opportunities for the youth,” said Jay Shankar, an economist with Religare Securities Ltd. in New Delhi. Look for big trends amid breaking news

What are the stories behind the statistics? Mine economic data for perspective and context and then talk to people whose lives are shaped by those trends. In the following story, reporters noticed how more young Americans are working abroad to avoid exorbitant childcare expenses. The story noted that, in some U.S. states, the average cost of full-time care for an infant exceeds 14 percent of a married couple’s median earnings. Kacee Ballew, who’s lived with her husband in Pakistan, New Zealand, and now Jamaica, sees one big obstacle to her family’s return to the U.S.: prohibitive childcare costs. “The only thing that’s preventing us from going home is that we have two kids in preschool,” Ballew said. “As soon as they’re in public school and we can just not have to worry about that cost, we’d be back in the States.” Ballew, 36, represents a growing trend among young workers who are more likely to jump at the opportunity to work abroad. While presidential candidates from both parties have shone a light on paid parental leave and the cost of overseeing infants, living overseas

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has become even more attractive as childcare bills take up a larger ­portion of U.S. household budgets. Use the terminal to find surprises and comparisons

Start with STAT, which contains a trove of macroeconomic, markets ECTR and commodities data. The Global View global trade data— Economy Watch, or GEW, shows exports, imports, surpluses, deficits—for all countries. decades of GDP data from the World Bank that can be used in stories to compare the relative size of economies. Japan’s economy, for example, is twice as large as India’s but less than a quarter of the U.S.’s. See forecasts of future GDP growth at ECFC. To evaluate individual U.S. states’ economic health, see BEES. To monitor global trade, use ECTR data from the World Bank, which show relationships between nations since 1980. For example, China’s largest trading partner is the U.S., followed by Japan. Since 2000, Chinese exports to the U.S. have risen five fold. For inflation data, use the terminal’s inflation monitor, or IFMO. Compare central bank and deposit rates at WDR, and type WIRP to see the probability of an interest rate hike or cut in major economies. Terminal Tip

Governments The story of government is the story of power. It is the story of how presidents, prime ministers and their surrogates try to shape the world we live in—and how markets, companies and foreign governments react to their power plays. Our job is to decode the tensions that lie at the heart of power and explain to readers how they fit into their risk models of the world. In many ways, governments set the rules of the game for the people who read and watch Bloomberg every day. They raise vast sums of money in the bond market. They spend huge quantities on everything from weapons to bridges and health care. They can create an environment in which business and markets thrive. And they

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can wreak havoc by embarking on ill-advised wars or regulating entire industries out of business. Terminal Tip But they can’t have it all their COUN own way. Traders pass judgment on View financial, economic governments each day in the finanand political profiles of major countries. cial markets. Lobbyists spend their lives trying to change legislation on behalf of Wall Street and large corporations. Here are some points to consider as you report on the intersection of money and power. What is the effect on company and industry strategies?

We want to be aware of the competing currents that governments face. For example, politicians, bankers and executives look at the world very differently. Their interactions are full of misunderstandings. Many bankers never thought that the U.S. government would let Lehman Brothers go under in September 2008, but that’s what happened. European politicians were horrified in 2011 when a plummeting bond market jeopardized the euro currency. This is rich territory for us. Likewise, foreign policy is of huge interest to our readers. War— and the threat of war—hang over business investments in many parts of the world. Our assumptions of Terminal Tip international relations can fall apart EU overnight as the Brexit referendum showed, with huge market impliShows data, charts, news and research about political cations. Here, too, it is our job to conditions in the European explain to our audience what risks Union. might be coming as they make their biggest investment decisions. For example, this story, published minutes after the British voted to exit the EU, captured the full sweep and shock of one of the most momentous events in modern European history:

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The U.K. voted to quit the European Union after more than four decades in a stunning rejection of the continent’s postwar political and economic order, prompting Prime Minister David Cameron to resign and sending shock waves around global markets. The pound plunged to the lowest since 1985, Asian stocks tumbled and U.S. Treasuries surged in one of the most dramatic 24 hours in modern British history. The final tally, announced just after 7 a.m. London time, showed voters had backed “Leave” by 52 percent to 48 percent. The government’s pro-EU campaign was defeated by more than 1 million ballots. The result sets Britain up for years of bitter divorce talks with the first salvos likely to be fired at an EU leaders’ summit next week. The U.K. must now count the economic and financial cost of an exit that Cameron warned would spark a recession. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings Plc have said a so-called Brexit would lead them to move thousands of jobs out of London. Coverage Guidelines

So what are the ground rules for deciding what to report? It’s easy to say that government matters but the scope of what it does is often vast and daunting. Most importantly, we want to be first and accurate with the news that could affect bond, stock, currency and commodity prices. By providing fact-based assessments of risk, we help our customers make better decisions about investing. That means being first with the news when a government increases corporate taxes, ramps up borrowing in the bond market, declares war on a neighbor, or appoints a central bank governor bent on abolishing inflation targets. Here’s a scoop from the heart of the Chinese government. It’s also a good example of cooperation between Bloomberg’s markets and government reporters, something we should always strive toward. China’s futures exchange may relax the restrictions on stock-index contracts that sparked a 99 percent plunge in trading and heightened concern over the government’s intervention in markets.

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The plan, which comes almost a year after China’s $5 trillion equity crash prompted a controversial government crackdown, suggests authorities are growing more confident that shares have stabilized. Policy makers are trying to find the right balance between their desire for control and President Xi Jinping’s pledge three years ago to give markets a central role in Asia’s largest economy. Covering General News

Our readers are interested in major events that have the potential to destabilize governments, markets and policy. These incidents include terrorist attacks and political acts like mass demonstrations and riots, as well as big transport crashes and natural disasters. When such an event occurs, we have to give readers all the news we can. The question is whether we write it ourselves (like we did with the 2015 Paris shootings) or use stories from external media outlets (like we did with the 2016 Orlando nightclub attack where we had no reporters on the ground). Ultimately, it is a question for the government team managers, working closely with the regional senior executive editors and the local bureau chief. If we have the resources to cover the story well— at least in the early stages—we should do it. Otherwise, we should run stories from other newswires. Whatever the decision, it needs to be communicated clearly to colleagues on all platforms. Staying Focused

Don’t write in a vacuum. Government reporters should be in constant contact with counterparts on other teams to understand what business and finance is interested in. Otherwise, we risk falling into the trap of writing about politics for politics’ sake. We want to take our audience inside the room when the biggest decisions are made. The only way to do that is to have sources in every key ministry and government agency. Speculation is easy; facts are hard. Only through impeccable source development can we provide the context that our audience requires. This is a perfect example of how long-term courting of sources can lead to a story that throws a new light on a key player in our universe.

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On Oct. 19, as the third and final presidential debate gets going in Las Vegas, Donald Trump’s Facebook and Twitter feeds are being manned by Brad Parscale, a San Antonio marketing entrepreneur, whose buzz cut and long narrow beard make him look like a mixed martial arts fighter. His Trump tie has been paired with a dark Zegna suit. A lapel pin issued by the Secret Service signals his status. He’s equipped with a dashboard of 400 prewritten Trump tweets. “Command center,” he says, nodding at his laptop. Parscale is one of the few within Trump’s crew entrusted to tweet on his behalf. He’s sitting at a long table in a double-wide trailer behind the debate arena, cheek to jowl with his fellow Trump staffers and Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. The charged atmosphere and rows of technicians staring raptly at giant TVs and computer screens call to mind NASA on launch day. On the wall, a poster of Julian Assange reads: “Dear Hillary, I miss reading your classified emails.”

Finally, we need to constantly think of new and different ways of telling the government story. Our readers have time to read long stories only if they are packed full of exclusive news and information that they can’t get elsewhere. Sometimes a story is more effectively told with a data visualization or a Q&A.

Acknowledgments The truth about this book is that, although it has only four names on the cover, it represents the collective wisdom and experience of the Bloomberg newsroom. So many journalists have seen at least part of it that an accurate byline would be almost as long as the book. That makes it a little invidious to acknowledge anyone. But some people deserve special mention. Top of the list is Matt Winkler, our editor-in-chief emeritus. Matt has two sons and one daughter, but for a quarter century the Bloomberg Way has been close to a fourth child, one that he has nurtured and perfected. It is hard to overstate his generosity in entrusting his offspring to us. We also would like to thank a small group of colleagues who met with us to review chapters: Otis Bilodeau, Chris Collins, Reto Gregori, Jared Sandberg, Tim Quinson and Laura Zelenko. A particular thanks goes as well to Chief of Staff Shelby Siegel and Jennifer and Paul’s colleagues on the standards & training team: Bill Austin, Audrey Barker, Reinie Booysen, Bob Brennan, Andrew

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Davis, Adrian Kennedy, Anne Pollak, Melissa Pozsgay, Zimri Smith, Cherian Thomas and Virginia Van Natta. There is then a long list of people who helped with particular sections of the book. They wrote, designed, edited, offered examples, generated great ideas, and staved off terrible ones: Max Abelson, Cesca Antonelli, Ashley Bahnken, Alex Barinka, Tom Contiliano, Anjali Cordeiro, Cécile Daurat, Paul Dobson, Scott Eells, Clementine Fletcher, Mikell Fine Iles, John Fraher, Tom Giles, David Gillen, Tom Golden, Katherine Graham, Shannon Harrington, Cynthia Hoffman, Aki Ito, Bob Ivry, Benedikt Kammel, Michael Keller, Jason Kelly, Martin Keohan, Phil Kuntz, Matthew Levine, Madeleine Lim, Jeremy Lin, Anthony Mancini, Dan Moss, Graham Morrison, Millie Munshi, Chris Nagi, Sonali Pathirana, Shin Pei, Jennifer Prince, Carlos Rodriguez, David Scheer, Randy Shapiro, Jacqueline Simmons, Brad Skillman, Catherine Taibi, Ty Trippet, Daniel Volker, Stuart Wallace and Carolina Wilson.

Appendix Bloomberg Terminal Functions

All Asset Classes The following Bloomberg Terminal functions work for all asset classes— equities, bonds, indexes, commodities and currencies. For some functions in this appendix, you must first load a security. For example, type Microsoft, click the MSFT US Equity dropdown and type the topic you’re searching for, such as analyst recommendations. Or type the shortcut: MSFT US ANR. COMP: Comparative returns. Create a graph showing the relationship between as many as six securities or indexes. DES: Description. Works with any security or index. GIP: Intraday price chart. For today’s prices. For a post-market graph, click the Overnight box. GP: Closing prices chart. Click the Key Events box to show relationships with events such as stock splits or buybacks. Click Chart Content to add other securities, including other stocks or indexes.

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GPO: Historical intraday price chart. HCP and HCPI: Provides a table of historical closing and intraday prices. HRH: Historical return histogram. Shows standard deviations from the norm to determine whether the move is a surprise. QR and QRM: Trade/quote recap. Bid and ask prices at specific times. SEAG: Seasonality trends. Click the Heat Map to view up to 30 years of monthly data. STAT: Global overview of data on economies, markets and commodities.

Equity Functions ANR: Analyst recommendations. Track individual analysts as well as overall ratings for the stock. BSV: Bloomberg Social Velocity Monitor. Shows alerts on sudden increases in the volume of postings about companies from Twitter. Related: GT. Graphs volume of Twitter posts against stock prices. BUYP: Buyer’s profile. Aggregates deal information for individual companies. CACS: Corporate actions. Dividends, buybacks, meetings, M&A, splits, changes in listings and more. CP: Company profile. Note the key insights section. EE: Earnings and estimates overview. The gateway to all earnings data and trends. Related: ERN. Earnings history. GUID. Company’s earnings guidance.

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EQRV: Equity relative value. Analyze how a company is performing compared with its peers over time. EV: Enterprise value. A proxy for a company’s takeover value. FA: Financial analysis. A storehouse of information, including income statements, balance sheets, segments divided by geography and business unit, and more. FA CHART: Add the word “chart” to any FA command to convert numbers into bar charts. GRE: Compare indicators. Graph the performance of one company against another or an index over time for priceearnings, price-book, price-sales, dividend yield and other key data. GX: Compare equities in a bar-chart format. Use data points such as revenue, net income and employees, or performance indicators such as ratios, margins and growth. HDS: Stock ownership. See who the major shareholders are. Note the Historical tab to show changes over time. IPO: Equity offerings. Monitor equity offerings by stage, region, industry and other criteria. MA: Mergers & acquisitions database. Explore deal-specific data or perform a custom search to view deal activity worldwide. Related: MADL. Shows all deals involving a specific company. MRGC: Merger calculator. MARB: Merger arbitrage. MGMT: Company management. View a company’s top executives and directors, including compensation and related share performance. PBAR: Peer barometer. Compare a company with rivals.

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RELS: Related securities. Shows related equity and debt securities, including options, loans, credit-default swaps, subsidiaries and corporate structure. RMAP: Relationship map. Shows a company’s executives, board members, shareholders, rivals, events and news. RV: Relative value. View performance against competitors. RVR: Relative value ranking. View a company’s performance against its peer groups. SPLC: Supply chain. Shows relationships between a company and its suppliers, customers and competitors. TREN: News trends. Track stocks that are attracting greater-thanusual reader activity or news articles on the terminal or Twitter.

Equity Index Functions MOST: Most-active equities. Shows gains, declines, value, volume, highs, lows by sector and/or by market value. Add a tail to see specific exchange, e.g., MOST LN to see all equities traded on the London exchange. MOV: Best and worst index performers. E.g., SPX Index MOV shows leaders and laggards on the S&P 500 Index by net change or percentage change. Related: GMOV. Group movers. MRR: Member ranked returns. Compare the best and worst performance on any index over any period in any currency. MRV: Market relative value. Compare performance, valuations, estimates and trends in one index with another. PORT: Portfolio analysis. Customizable breakdown of stocks’ and industries’ performance in an index. WATC: Watchlist analytics. Compare and rank index members by returns, valuation measures, earnings estimates and more.

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WCAP: World market capitalization. Compare aggregate market value of various countries’ traded equities, e.g., Japan versus China. WEI: World equity indexes. Related: EMEQ. Emerging market indexes. WEIB: Market breadth. A monitor displaying movers, highs and lows, and technical analysis. WEIF: World equity index futures. WEIS: World equity index rankings. Compare indexes over any time period. WPE: World equity index ratios. Compare indexes’ price/earnings, price/sales, dividend yield and other ratios. WVM: World volume monitor. Shows the AVAT (average volume at time) and ATAT (average turnover at time) against a specific average.

Bond Functions BYFC: Bond yield forecasts. Shows predictions for benchmark government bond yields from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. CAST: Capital structure. Displays the seniority of a company’s debt and shows where lenders have recourse in its hierarchy. CCA: Credit comparable analysis. Evaluates a company’s credit using valuation multiples, market metrics and credit ratios. CRPR: Credit rating profile. See a company’s current and historical credit ratings. CSDR: Country sovereign debt ratings. Find credit ratings on government debt, highlighting recent changes. DDIS: Debt distribution for companies and countries. Shows interest and principal due each year.

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DEBT: Sovereign debt ownership. Line graphs and pie charts showing where a country’s debt is held. DRSK: Company default risk. Analyze a company’s credit health and compare metrics with industry peers. FIRV: Fixed-income relative value. Bond yields relative to government bonds, swap rates and other benchmarks. GC: Graph curves. Graph and compare yield curves for government and corporate borrowers. See changes over time. GCDS: Global credit-default swaps. Chart credit-default swaps for government and corporate borrowers. GY: Graph yield for any government or corporate bond. IN: Index Browser, including the Bloomberg Barclays series. Compare the relative performance of bonds from different countries and industries, or with different credit ratings. NIM: New issues monitor. Pricing and news for corporate and government debt sold through underwriters. ISSD: Issuer profile. Overview of a bond issuer’s debt ratios and credit ratings. RATD: Ratings definitions. Click on Rating Scale Comparisons to see equivalent credit ratings from Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings and others. RVM: Relative value by maturity. Graph the yield spread of a corporate or government bond. SRSK: Sovereign credit risk. Estimate the default probability of a country’s sovereign debt. Update debt levels, economic growth and other variables to evaluate different scenarios.

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WB: World bonds. Monitor benchmark government bond markets. WBF: World bond futures. Monitor futures on benchmark bonds. WCDM: World countries debt monitor. Compare and rank sovereign debt markets by size, credit-default swap prices, ratings and debt as a percentage of GDP. WCDS: World CDS monitor. Monitor and rank government and corporate credit-default swaps prices.

Currency Functions BDXY: Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index. Tracks the performance of a basket of 10 currencies versus the U.S. dollar. FXCA: Currency calculator. Convert an amount in one currency into another. FX24: Displays intraday market sessions within a 24-hour price range, so you can visualize open, high, low and close prices. FXFC: Foreign exchange forecasts. Consensus forecasts and foreign-exchange forwards. FXIP: Currency portal. View news, forwards, options, volatility and the U.S. Dollar Index. WCR: World currency rates. Click Currency basket to customize. View today’s rates or historical prices. WCRS: World currency ranker. Sort historical performance by currency basket and specific currency. Note the information in gray on the carry trade, interest rates. XDF: Currency defaults. Set defaults for currency price sources and trading days.

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Commodity Functions CPLY: Commodities playbook. Overview of major commodities. Choose a sector. Right-click on a commodity for more options. CPFC: Commodity price forecasts. Compare forecasts for energy, agriculture and metals. See individual analysts’ estimates or composite projections. CCRV: Commodity curve analysis. Chart futures and forward contracts for a loaded security. CTM: Contract table menu. Search for futures contracts by category, exchange or region. Related: CEM. Contract exchange menu. CMDS: Regional commodity markets. Select a region. Also displays currencies and links to economic releases. CRR: Commodity ranked returns. Best and worst performers for selected time period. CT: Futures contracts table. See contracts for a selected commodity. GLCO: Global commodity prices. Monitor real-time prices and volume. Right-click on a commodity for more options.

Economy & Government Functions BEES: State financial analysis. Find historical data for U.S. states. BILL: U.S. legislation. Find information about legislation proposed in Congress and follow pending bills. COUN: Country guide. View financial, economic and political profiles of major countries. ECO: Economic calendars. A schedule of economic, government and central bank events by country and region.

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ECFC: Economic forecasts. Shows projections from central banks, international organizations and private companies. Click Region Comparison and Region Differential in the Country/Region/ World dropdown for an overview. ECST: World economic statistics. Key indicators and other economic data by country. Related: ECST S. Search. ECTR: Trade flow. See a nation’s exports, imports, surplus/deficit and major trading partners going back to 1980. GEW: Global economy watch. Shows GDP, CPI, unemployment and surplus/deficit for countries. Click region headings for more countries. IFMO: Inflation monitor. Target rates, forecasts by country and region. ILBE: World inflation breakeven rates. Shows the difference between yields on inflation-linked bonds and regular bonds. MIPR: Market-implied policy rates. Implied interest rates in the three main regions. WDR: World deposit rates. Bank and deposit rates around the world. WIRP: World interest rate probability. Analyze the probabilities of various interest-rate outcomes as implied by the futures, options and OIS markets.

Search Functions BBLS: Bloomberg law search. Search legal content for regulations, company filings, court opinions, dockets. CACT: Corporate actions search. Search corporate actions, including shareholder meetings, dividends, stock splits, buybacks, M&A and debt offerings.

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CFS: Company filings search. Search documents, including annual reports, conference call transcripts, shareholder meetings and prospectuses. DS: Document search. Search for documents relating to securities, keywords or lists. EQS: Equity screening. The terminal’s most powerful and versatile equity search tool. IPO: Initial public offerings search. Use Advanced Search to build an IPO search by specific criteria. LEAG: League tables. See which institutional investors lead the tables for bond and loan issuance, equity offerings. MA: Mergers & acquisitions search. Use Advanced Search to build an M&A search by specific criteria. NSE: News search. Use Advanced Editor to add multiple filters to the search. PEOP: People search. Sort 2.8 million profiles by role, location, company, education, industry or keyword. RES: Research portal. Click All Research to filter by asset class, analyst actions or ratings. Related: BRC. Research on any company. SRCH: Bonds and loans search. Search 2 million government and corporate bonds and loans by holders, debt distribution and other criteria. Incorporates LSRC. Related: LOAN. Syndicated loan monitor.

Editorial & Research Functions  BI: Bloomberg Intelligence. Sort BI research and data by industry and topics. Related: BIP. View Bloomberg Intelligence Primers.

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BNA: Bloomberg BNA. View stories by content type and topics. BNEF: Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Sort BNEF research and data by sector, region and type. BRIEF: Bloomberg Briefs. View Bloomberg Brief newsletters. CN: Company news. Stories about specific companies. E.g., MSFT US Equity CN shows news on Microsoft. DAYB: Daybreak. View the most recent Daybreak news service. ENDO: U.S. college endowments. Rankings by size and return. FIRS: First Word. Sort and view First Word content by asset class. GADF: Bloomberg Gadfly. View Gadfly’s analytical content. MAG: Bloomberg magazines. Search articles in Bloomberg Markets and Bloomberg Businessweek. MEDI: Bloomberg media. Live and recorded television and radio broadcasts, press conferences, speeches, teleconferences and other events. NEWS ON: News search. Find news on any topic by typing NEWS ON followed by the subject, date and wire. For example, NEWS ON MICROSOFT IN 2016 ON BLOOMBERG. NH: News headlines. Headlines and stories from various sources. E.g., NH BBG for Bloomberg content. NH NYT for New York Times. NH APW for Associated Press. NH WPT for Washington Post. NI: News by topic and region. E.g., NI MARKETS, NI CHINA, NI NOB (North America bonds), NI OIL, NI FED (Federal Reserve).

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PAY: Bloomberg Pay Index. Ranking of executive compensation, including daily changes as markets fluctuate. QUICK: QuickTake explainers. Read short, authoritative pieces about topics in the news. RICH: Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ranking of the world’s wealthiest people with daily updates. Click on a name for individual details. SQUA: First Word audio squawk. Listen to real-time curated audio-streamed headlines. TLIV: Top live blogs. View real-time blogs on business, economic and political events, from earnings to elections. TOP: Top news. Breaking news stories, exclusives, features, commentary and analysis curated by Bloomberg. VIEW: Bloomberg View. Editorials and columns.

Terminal Tips Find anything on the terminal by typing a topic and hitting the HELP button. Examples: COCOA PRICE WARREN BUFFETT AGE VODAFONE PRICE 3/16/15 MICROSOFT MARKET VALUE PERU UNEMPLOYMENT Use command numbers as shortcuts to perform headline and story procedures efficiently on the keyboard. Select a published headline or story and type the number shortcut followed by GO. 2 View Story Maintenance Screen 3 See next story in a list

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4 See previous story in a list 10 Download a story 24 Open a search box in a story 27 Add, edit clickable links in stories 35 Open story in STRQ 40 Edit a bundle 53 Prepare BFW story from a headline 66 Send story via message system 77 Send an FYI message to an STRQ team 78 Launch JOIN from a headline 81 Prepare bundled headline in RIF 85 Copy SUID/NSN story link to clipboard 86 Prepare BN content for COPY 91 Bookmark a story 97 Open attachments ALRT: Alerts. Set up market, news, economic and time alerts. Related: BLRT: Bloomberg alert catcher. CDR: Calendar. Related: NOW: Time. IC: International clock. DCX: Days between dates. HC: Hand calculator. Related: HCS. Instant hand calculator. JOIN: Story builder. Use JOIN to compile First Word or Daybook stories from existing headlines, stories and text. RIF STR and RIFR: Headline sender. Use RIF STR to send headlines to the stringer wire. Editors can edit and send headlines using the RIFR headline-generator function.

Words & Terms Bloomberg Editorial & Research style establishes a common language for all stories in every medium, one that is understood in all regions and by every customer. It is the result of continuing discourse by reporters and editors since we began in 1990. The following guide highlights important words and terms for financial news reporters. The complete list is available on the terminal by typing STYL. Style guides specific to First Word and First Word FX are available under NI LESSON. If a point isn’t addressed in The Bloomberg Way or STYL, consult the latest Associated Press Stylebook. If it’s in neither of those, the reference for spelling is the latest edition of the Webster’s New World College Dictionary. For spelling the names of places, first check STYL. Then go to the AP Stylebook and the Webster’s dictionary. If the place isn’t listed, check the U.S. Postal Service’s National five-digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory, or its equivalent anywhere else. Apply standard American spelling, usage and punctuation and not words or phrases unique to British, Australian or other writers

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of English. When the U.S. usage would be difficult for a reader elsewhere to understand, choose words that can be grasped anywhere. -fold Suffix that serves as a multiplier: Sevenfold means seven times as much. An increase of 100 percent is the same as doubled or two times. An increase of 200 percent is tripled, or three times or threefold. Hyphenate when the number used with -fold is 10 or more: sevenfold, 10-fold, 100-fold. The verbs after quadruple (quintuple, sextuple, etc.) are awkward and should be avoided. -ly Adverbs ending in -ly don’t take hyphens: closely held company, most actively traded shares. 401(k) Retirement savings plan provided by some U.S. companies. Employees can contribute a percentage of pretax or after-tax wages to the plan, and many companies match at least part of their contributions. abbreviations Use only abbreviations that are easily recognizable to a worldwide audience. Write the full name on first reference and introduce the abbreviation on second reference as a rule, though the reverse is acceptable for lengthy names such as Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. When an abbreviation has more than four letters and doesn’t have to be pronounced letter by letter when spoken, use lowercase after the first letter. Otherwise, use uppercase. Examples: EU, SEC, AIDS, OPEC, REIT, Nafta, Ebitda, Unesco, Cnooc, AFL-CIO. Exceptions include BRICS. The rule on abbreviating company names is different. (See the company names entry.) An abbreviation doesn’t stand alone just because it’s common practice locally. When referring to the FBI, for example, write

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the U.S. agency’s name—the Federal Bureau of Investigation—at some point. The same goes for the IRS, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Use full titles in stories and headlines because the abbreviations may not be familiar globally: Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Representative Nancy Pelosi, General Hugh Shelton, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley. Standard abbreviations such as Dept. and Co. require a period. For non-U.S. dollars, use these abbreviations in all references: A$ for Australia, C$ for Canada, HK$ for Hong Kong, NZ$ for New Zealand, S$ for Singapore, NT$ for Taiwan. Avoid abbreviations in story headlines. In flash headlines only—to make space available for company tickers—some abbreviations are acceptable: Govt for government; Intl for international; Ops for operations and Cont Ops for continuing operations; Mln, Bln, Tln for million, billion and trillion; 1Q for first quarter; 1H for first half; FY for fiscal year; Yr for year and similar abbreviations for other periods; Qtrly for quarterly; Rev for revenue; EPS for earnings per share; Div for dividend; Pnds for British pounds. Flash headlines also may shorten million, billion and trillion to M, B and T. Put the letter immediately after the number: $300M, $2B. When it’s obvious that the figures are per share, it’s acceptable to drop Share altogether. These news organizations, whose names are globally recognized, are the only ones that may be abbreviated in headlines: AP, AFP, BBC, CNBC, CNN, FT, MSNBC, NYT and WSJ. Include country references in headlines when necessary to prevent confusion. FTC can stand for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Japan’s Fair Trade Commission. TSE can stand for both the Tokyo and Toronto stock exchanges. It’s acceptable to use MOF for Japan or China’s Ministry of Finance in headlines and on second reference in stories as long as the country being referred to is clear.

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above Refers to location or direction, while more than refers to amount: The light is above me. He received more than 51 percent of the votes. academic degrees Use MBA, without periods, to abbreviate master’s degree in business administration. Other academic degrees take periods: B.A., M.S., Ph.D. It’s always acceptable, and often smoother, to avoid abbreviations and write a phrase such as doctorate in mathematics or master’s degree in marine biology. accents Omit accent marks. For German umlauts, use a vowel without an umlaut followed by the letter e: ae, oe, ue. Examples: Wolfgang Schaeuble (the a has an umlaut in German). Baden-Wuerttemberg (the u has an umlaut in German). For Scandinavian proper names, replace ä with a; ö with o; and ø with o. Replace æ with ae. Examples: Stefan Löfven is spelled Stefan Lofven. Mærsk is spelled Maersk. In a Swedish name, replace å with a. In a Danish name, write aa. Examples: Sweden’s Åsa Regner becomes Asa Regner. Denmark’s Finansrådet becomes Finansraadet. In all other cases, write the vowels without accents. administration Lowercase, as in the Trump administration. adviser Not advisor, except in a proper name. affect, effect Affect is a verb meaning to influence, and a noun meaning a feeling. Effect is a verb meaning to bring about, and a noun meaning a consequence.

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African-American, black Use black rather than African-American for most references in the U.S. As with other descriptions of race, ethnicity or nationality, include only when relevant to the news. Ethnic descriptions used in hyphenation with American are best reserved for immigrants or first-generation Americans. Henry Kissinger, born in Bavaria, is German-American. Former President George W. Bush isn’t described as German-American or Irish-American, because he is generations removed from his German and Irish ancestors. Black applies widely as a racial description, while AfricanAmerican refers specifically to those whose ancestors were brought to the U.S. as slaves. Some black Americans aren’t descended from slaves or don’t identify with that heritage. African-American is acceptable in references specifically to African-American culture. It may be used for people who indicate it as their preference. It shouldn’t be changed in direct quotations or in proper names such as the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council. after-tax, pretax Use after-tax only when distinguishing from pretax. Not aftertax or post-tax. No hyphen in pretax. Use amounts before taxes in earnings stories only when after-tax figures aren’t available, and always label them. age Include for any newsmaker in a story when relevant. Stories usually don’t need ages for spokesmen, analysts, economists, government employees or others who are commenting or supplying information in a formal capacity. agreed Conform to American English when using agreed. Something arranged or settled by common consent is agreed on. Something accepted is agreed to. A preposition is needed, rather than writing a phrase such as agreed a partnership or agreed a deal.

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Agreed bid is jargon. Phrases such as agreement to buy are preferable. al-Qaeda  Muslim terrorist organization that was led by Osama bin Laden. American depositary receipts  Not depository. They represent a stake in a non-U.S. company and are traded mainly in the U.S. stock market. ADR is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. Avoid the alternative American depositary shares. American English  Use spelling from other English-speaking countries only in proper names: e.g., Labour Party rather than Labor Party when referring to the U.K. political party. Informal pronunciations such as gonna generally don’t belong in stories, even in direct quotations. Write stories in accepted spelling: going to, no matter how the speaker pronounced it. Write: advertisement or ad, not advert agreed to or agreed with, not agreed aluminum, not aluminium analyze, not analyse ax, not axe check, not cheque defense, not defence fulfil, not fulfill gray, not grey jewelry, not jewellery meager, not meagre organize, not organise plan or program, not scheme revenue, not turnover skeptic, not sceptic

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soccer, not football tire, not tyre unprofitable, not loss-making  American Indian Preferable to native American. and, ampersand In all company and organization names, substitute an ampersand rather than writing and or its equivalent in other languages, even when the company uses and in its formal name: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., not Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.; Rohde & Schwarz GmbH, not Rohde und Schwarz GmbH. Use and for government agencies: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. For compositions such as books, movies, magazines and television shows, follow the original use of & or and in the title: “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”; Food & Wine magazine; the Globe and Mail; “Law & Order.” antitrust Not anti-trust. Refers to laws or policies aimed at curtailing trusts, other monopolies and unfair business practices in an effort to encourage competition. APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a group that promotes economic ties and removal of trade barriers in the region. The abbreviation is acceptable on second reference and in headlines. Members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam. Refer to APEC economies or APEC members, rather than APEC nations or APEC countries.

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arbitrageur Someone who seeks to profit from price discrepancies between markets by buying a cheaper asset and selling a more expensive asset. Arbitrager is also acceptable. Australia Size and scope on Australian entities should recognize that Australia is a separate country or part of the Pacific region, not part of Asian markets. author Use as a noun, not as a verb. automated teller machine Dispenses cash, takes bank deposits and can perform other functions. Not automatic teller machines. ATM is acceptable on first reference and in headlines. average, mean, median Average is the same as mean for our purposes. Don’t confuse with median, which is the middle number in a range ordered from low to high. Use the average for earnings estimates. Use the median when we survey economists for numbers such as forecasts of government economic reports. avian influenza, bird flu Use the full name of this infectious disease, avian influenza, on first or second reference. It’s acceptable to use bird flu in the headline and lead, so long as the full name is used next. Later references may also be shortened to avian flu. Bancorp No period is needed on this standard abbreviation for Bancorporation. Bank of America Write Bank of America Corp. on first reference for all arms of the company. Describe the relevant business generically—brokerage, investment banking, etc.—and without capitalizing. BofA is acceptable in headlines and on second reference.

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bankrupt In the U.S., acceptable on first reference to describe companies in bankruptcy proceedings. Specify the type of proceeding and what it entails: Chapter 7, which leads to liquidation, or Chapter 11, which enables companies to reorganize. Bankruptcy laws vary by country, and a legal term used in one jurisdiction may have a very different meaning elsewhere. Always be careful with words that imply a company is about to go out of business. It’s better to stick to the facts and financial details. Take care to use sources with direct knowledge and always give the companies being named a right to reply. bargain hunting Jargon. Give the price at which people may buy. Basel Not Basle. Needs Switzerland on first reference. basic earnings per share One of two per-share earnings figures that most companies report. Based solely on common shares outstanding. Don’t use unless a company doesn’t provide diluted earnings per share, which includes securities such as options, warrants and convertible bonds that may become common shares. basis point Define the term in stories as the equivalent of 0.01 percentage point. Use to describe yield, not price:  The bond yields 50 basis points more than the benchmark 10-year Treasury note. 

Use numerals for two-digit numbers, counting fractions as a digit, and use words for one-digit numbers: 75 basis points, 4 1/2 basis points, three basis points, one basis point. bear market, bull market These terms may be used in stories as long as they’re promptly defined.

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A bear market is down at least 20 percent from the last time it rose 20 percent. A bull market is up at least 20 percent from the last time it fell 20 percent. Calculate the changes from closing values, not intraday numbers. A correction is a 10 percent decline, measured from the most recent increase of at least 10 percent, based on closing prices or values. Beige Book Capitalize both words, in keeping with the Federal Reserve’s practice. On first reference, describe the report as the Federal Reserve’s latest assessment of regional economies in the U.S. believe, feel, hope, think Not synonyms for say. Journalists don’t know what people believe, feel, hope or think. They know only what people say and what they do. Similarly, avoid worry or worries unless we are quoting someone saying, “I’m worried.” between Not to be used for a range that includes the number on each end. A price between $6 and $10 means $6.01 to $9.99. To include them, use the to construction: The price is $6 to $10. Big Three Avoid this outdated reference to General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. bin Laden, Osama Deceased founder of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Not Usama. Capitalize bin when Bin Laden appears by itself in headlines or at the start of sentences. bitcoin Bitcoins are a commodity promoted by advocates as a digital currency or virtual currency. Define in stories.

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The singular is bitcoin, not capitalized. The plural is bitcoins: fewer bitcoins, not less bitcoin. black box Write as two words. Many aircraft are required to be equipped with a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. Some ships are required to have voyage data recorders, also called black boxes. Bloomberg citations Stories containing content from Bloomberg Television or Bloomberg Radio should cite those platforms: “Equity markets aren’t overvalued when measured by the prices buyout firms are paying for companies,” Baratta said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Put the broadcast reporter’s name in the byline if a print story is based on his or her interview. Make sure the reporter reviews the story. In other cases, it may be appropriate to add the reporter to the assistance line of the story. When analysts or economists from Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg New Energy Finance or Bloomberg Government are quoted in stories, make the affiliation clear: “. . . said John Smith, a media analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence”; “. . . Jane Miller, a solarpower analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London, said in an email”; “. . . according to Bloomberg Government transportation analyst William Jones.” Bloomberg, Michael Whenever we name Michael Bloomberg in a story, note his role as founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP. When reporting on his actions as a newsmaker, we should seek comment as we would for any other public figure. Bloomberg Editorial doesn’t cover Michael Bloomberg’s wealth or personal life. BMW Short for Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. BMW is sufficient on first reference. Use the full name once in any story referring to the German automaker.

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BSE Use BSE for the Bombay Stock Exchange. The exchange is owned and operated by BSE Ltd. It is located in Mumbai. The larger National Stock Exchange also is in Mumbai. board of directors Use board or directors when referring to U.S. companies, which have only one board. Some European countries have a two-tier system; a management board runs the business, and a supervisory board of outside directors makes strategic decisions. When referring to one board or the other, be specific and explain its duties. bolsa Acceptable as a substitute for stock exchange in nations where the term is used. bond coupons Express bond coupon percentages as decimals rather than fractions. Write 3.5 percent bond, not 3 1/2 percent bond. bond ratings, credit Here are the rating scales of S&P and Moody’s Investors Service:  Investment-grade bonds S&P Moody’s Junk Bonds S&P Moody’s

AAA Aaa

AA Aa

A A

BBB Baa

BB Ba

B B

CCC Caa

CC Ca

C C

S&P uses plus and minus signs to distinguish between borrowers within the AA to CCC categories. Use these signs in all references, rather than writing plus or minus. Avoid hyphenating ratings, because the hyphens could be mistaken for minus signs. The A rated bond and

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the A– rated bond are clear. The A-rated bond could be read as A or A-. Moody’s uses 1, 2 or 3 on all ratings in the Aa to Caa categories in place of plus or minus signs. Don’t put quotation marks around ratings: The bonds received an AA rating from S&P. Junk is acceptable on first reference with an immediate explanation that it means high-yield, high-risk debt. Elaborate lower that such bonds are rated below BBB- by S&P and Baa3 by Moody’s, or give the exact rating. Use company rather than agency in all references to rating providers, such as S&P and Moody’s. They are corporations, not governmental organizations. S&P Global Inc. is the name of the company formerly known as McGraw-Hill Financial Inc. Its ratings unit Standard & Poor’s is now known as S&P Global Ratings. Use S&P Global Ratings on first reference. S&P is fine for headlines and on second reference. Moody’s Corp. is the parent of Moody’s Investors Service. Use Moody’s Investors Service on first reference, Moody’s in headlines and on second reference. For more details on credit ratings, enter RATD. For a company’s rating history, enter its ticker symbol and CRPR. For a country’s rating history, enter CSDR. bondholder Not bond holder. book value Measure of a company’s net worth, typically defined as shareholders’ equity. It’s calculated by taking the value of assets and subtracting the value of liabilities. Often stated on a per-share basis. BRIC, BRICS Use BRIC to refer jointly to Brazil, Russia, India and China. Use BRICS for those four countries plus South Africa.

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Both terms are written in all capitals. Avoid BRICs to refer to the four BRIC countries, as it could be misconstrued as BRICS. The countries should be named on first reference unless in a lead or quote. In those instances, name the countries soon afterward. Btu Acceptable in headlines and on second reference as an abbreviation for British thermal units, used to measure amounts of energy. but, although, despite, however But is acceptable as a conjunction when the intent is to signal an about-face. Clauses containing but, although, despite or however often confuse more than they clarify because the words connect dissimilar ideas in a single sentence and take readers in two different directions. Focus on the part of the sentence to emphasize rather than put it in opposition to another point. Sometimes and is a better choice. buy side, sell side Jargon. Use only in a quote that is otherwise compelling. Buy side refers to mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity funds, insurance companies and other institutions that purchase large quantities of securities. Sell side refers to brokers and dealers. Two words as nouns: the buy side, the sell side. Hyphenate as modifiers: buy-side investors, sell-side advice. buyback, buy back When a company repurchases shares of its stock, usually on the open market. One word as a noun; two words as a verb. buyout, buy out One word as a noun; two words as a verb. call options Contracts that provide the right—but not the obligation—to buy a security, currency or commodity at a set price within a set period.

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Also can be used to bet on the direction of an index, such as for stocks or interest rates. capital cities The name of a capital city isn’t a substitute for references to a nation’s people or government. Washington isn’t the American people; Moscow isn’t the Putin government. Brussels isn’t a synonym for the EU. Capitals are places. Use the capital city name sparingly and only when the reference is clear. capital controls Government-imposed limits on how money enters or leaves the country. Be specific: The government barred anyone from taking its currency out of the country. capital increase Write instead that the company is selling additional shares. cash earnings Profit figure that excludes an assortment of items, mainly noncash charges that a company sees as unrelated to its recurring business. Avoid this phrase because items included or excluded from the figure vary among companies. Specify the items that aren’t included: EBay said profit excluding stock-based pay, amortization and certain other costs was $197.7 million, or 29 cents a share. cash flow Define this financial measure because it has several variations, such as cash flow from operations, cash flow from investing, or free cash flow. Some use the term to mean earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda. Be specific because cash flow and Ebitda aren’t necessarily the same. cash reserves This colloquial expression implies that a company has cash set aside for a specific purpose. The company may or may not have plans for

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using the money. Say exactly what the company has on hand, cash or cash and short-term investments. Exception: Cash reserves has a more specific meaning in the accounting for financial institutions. It’s appropriate to use the term for banks and insurance companies, which are required to have certain levels of cash reserves as part of their total cash holdings. casualty Not a synonym for fatality. It refers to those killed or seriously injured. Military casualties can include those who are captured, interned, sick or missing. Explain where we got our facts about casualties in military conflicts. Name the government, combatant group or news service that provided them. cent, penny, pence Use cent only for countries that have cents as a monetary unit, such as the U.S. and Canada. Use penny or pennies for those currencies only when referring to 1-cent coins. Use penny also for the currency of countries that have the penny as a monetary unit, such as the U.K. The plural, pence, should be written rather than abbreviated in all references, including stock prices. Make sure it’s clear which country’s currency is involved. Cents is acceptable if used when the Canadian dollar or euro has been specified. Without a reference nearby, write Canadian cents or euro cents to prevent confusion with U.S. currency. It’s preferable to write cents in story headlines. If abbreviation is necessary, write lowercase: Acme Fourth-Quarter Profit Rises to 3 Cents a Share; Acme Forecasts Fourth-Quarter Profit of 3c a Share. The uppercase C is acceptable in standalone flash headlines: *ACME FORECASTS 4TH-QTR NET INCOME OF 3C-SHARE.

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Central African Republic Use the country’s full name in stories and headlines. It may be abbreviated as CAR only in compelling quotations. central banks Use the Anglicized name except when the name in the local language is well known, such as the Bundesbank, or necessary for clarity. These central bank names may be abbreviated in headlines and on second reference, sparingly.  the Fed: U.S. Federal Reserve. BOE: Bank of England. BOJ: Bank of Japan. ECB: European Central Bank. PBOC: People’s Bank of China. RBA: Reserve Bank of Australia. SNB: Swiss National Bank. chairman, chairwoman Not chairperson. A female company chairman should be referred to as chairman unless she requests to be called chairwoman. Chair is acceptable only when a company or institution uses it in official communications, such as Fed Chief Janet Yellen’s preference for chair. In Europe, use chairman only for the head of a company’s supervisory board. When referring to the head of the management board, use chief executive officer. chief executive officer Use chief executive officer, rather than chief executive, for first reference in stories. Chief executive or the abbreviation CEO may be used on second reference. CEO is acceptable on first reference in a feature lead, with the full term lower. CEO also may be used in headlines. An executive’s name is often more meaningful, so avoid falling back on the abbreviation all the time. Refer to the person as chief, as chief executive, or by name, as in Facebook’s Zuckerberg.

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In Europe, use chief executive officer when referring to the head of a company’s management board. Chief financial officer may be shortened to CFO and chief operating officer to COO on second reference and in headlines. chip, chipmaker Semiconductor, chip, integrated circuit and microchip all mean the same thing. Write chipmaker as one word. Explain what kind of chip the company makes: Intel Corp., the world’s biggest computer-chip maker, or Nvidia Corp., the maker of graphics chips used by computer gamers. city names The following cities can stand alone in copy or headlines:  Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Athens, Atlanta, Auckland. Baghdad, Baltimore, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Bonn, Bogota, Boston, Brasilia, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Buenos Aires. Cairo, Calgary, Cape Town, Caracas, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Copenhagen. Dallas, Damascus, Denver, Detroit, Doha, Dubai, Dublin. Edinburgh. Frankfurt. Geneva, Gibraltar, Guatemala City. The Hague, Hamburg, Havana, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Houston. Indianapolis, Istanbul. Jakarta, Jerusalem, Johannesburg. Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City. Las Vegas, Lima, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Luxembourg. Madrid, Manila, Marseille, Melbourne, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Monaco, Montreal, Moscow, Mumbai, Munich. New Delhi, New Orleans, New York. Oklahoma City, Oslo, Ottawa.

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Panama City, Paris, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Prague. Quebec City. Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Rotterdam. St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Marino, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney. Taipei, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Toronto. Vancouver, Vatican City, Vienna. Warsaw, Washington. Zurich.  Class A, Class B shares Not class A, class B. The terms refer to classifications of common stock that may carry different voting rights. Class A shares don’t necessarily have more voting rights than Class B shares. See EV for details on a company’s shares. clean coal Jargon for coal that has been treated or whose emissions are captured to reduce pollution. Acceptable in quotes. Explain that it’s a politicized term and describe it. clichés Words and expressions whose overuse obscures any value or meaning:  against the backdrop at a crossroads at this point in time barring major news beef up begs the question big business breath of fresh air campaign trail cautiously optimistic charm offensive claimed the life of

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climbed the corporate ladder court of public opinion double down deer in the headlights face-saving compromise feeding frenzy financial circles growing body of evidence hit a soft patch hit the ground running in the wake of in this day and age laid to rest navel gazing no holds barred no uncertain terms perfect storm poster child powers that be provides fresh details pushing the envelope reaping the benefits remains to be seen rose from obscurity ruffled feathers stinging rebuke stretched too thin take the helm trial by fire unanswered questions wake-up call war-torn country what a difference a year makes wide-ranging win-win situation 

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closely held Company controlled by a few people. May have publicly traded shares. Preferable to privately held. It isn’t hyphenated. Cnooc Ltd. Use this spelling for the Chinese oil company. CoCo CoCo is acceptable in headlines and leads for contingent convertible bonds. Explain in the second or third paragraph. No e in the plural: CoCos. collateralized debt obligation Securities that bundle bonds or loans, or both, from a variety of issuers such as companies or countries. Banks create them by grouping lower-rated assets into securities that are worth more than the total value of the underlying assets. Interest payments on the underlying bonds or loans are used to pay investors. The abbreviation CDO is acceptable on second reference and in headlines. Describe the securities in other ways as well, so stories aren’t jammed with initials. One alternative is customized securities backed by bonds, loans, real estate, commodities and a variety of material assets. On later references, it can be these customized securities. No hyphen is needed in collateralized debt obligations. collateralized mortgage obligations The abbreviation CMO is acceptable on second reference and in headlines. Colombia, Columbia Colombia is the South American country’s name. Columbia is the name of a river, a university in New York City and several cities in North America. common Write common shares rather than ordinary shares.

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Compagnie, Companhia, Compania Abbreviate Compagnie to Cie. in all company names. Abbreviate Companhia and Compania to Cia. in all company names. company headquarters Always include where a company is based. For example, Procter & Gamble Co., based in Cincinnati. If the action in the story is happening elsewhere, note that as well. company names Generally follow the company’s spelling and punctuation on first reference, and use the entire name. Shorten to one or two words in headlines and on second reference. The first word is enough when it’s unique. Exxon refers only to Exxon Mobil Corp. Use more than one word for common names, especially in headlines, to distinguish the company from others. Differentiate in headlines between companies such as Prudential Financial and Prudential Plc. It is acceptable to use the familiar name of a company on first reference in some cases. For example, write DuPont Co. rather than E.I duPont de Nemours & Co. Write Ericsson AB rather than Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson. Write Richemont rather than Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA. When shortening to two words, don’t put a comma between them even if one appears in the full name. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP thus becomes Skadden Arps in headlines and on second reference; Gresham, Smith & Partners becomes Gresham Smith. Use these spellings for company designations: AB, AG, AS, Bancorp, Bhd., BV, CA, Cia., Cie., Co., Cos., Corp., GmbH, Inc., KGaA, Ltd., LLC, LLP, LP, NV, Oy, Oyj, Pcl, Plc, Pte, Pty, SA, Saca, Sdn. and SpA. Omit any comma that immediately precedes them in the full name. Some companies, such as Marsh & McClennan Cos. Inc., use more than one designation. Include only the first one except when a second is necessary to distinguish between companies with similar names.

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Don’t use The at the beginning of a name even if a company does: Charles Schwab Corp., not The Charles Schwab Corp. Abbreviate words only if the company itself does so: Warner Bros. Write Citigroup and Citibank, not Citi. Write Coca-Cola, not Coke. Give unabbreviated company names, even in headlines, so that our reports don’t look like alphabet soup. Only these abbreviations may be used—sparingly—in headlines and on second reference, because they are recognized worldwide:  AMD: Advanced Micro Devices. AIG: American International Group. AB InBev: Anheuser Busch InBev. ANZ: Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. BBVA: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. BofA: Bank of America. BNY: Mellon Bank of New York Mellon. BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke. CIBC: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Con Edison: Consolidated Edison. EDF: Electricite de France. GE: General Electric. GM: General Motors. H&M: Hennes & Mauritz. ICBC: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. IBM: International Business Machines. JAL: Japan Airlines. J&J: Johnson & Johnson. NTT: Nippon Telegraph & Telephone. P&G: Procter & Gamble. RBC: Royal Bank of Canada. RBS: Royal Bank of Scotland. SocGen: Societe Generale. S&P: Standard & Poor’s. UPS: United Parcel Service. VW: Volkswagen. WaMu: Washington Mutual.  

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In headlines, NCB, for National Commercial Bank, may be used only when accompanied by Saudi or Saudi Arabia. PricewaterhouseCoopers may be shortened in headlines to PwC only when necessary to fit essential elements. Don’t abbreviate as PWC or Pricewaterhouse. Other company names should be spelled with full words in text and story headlines. They may be abbreviated in standalone headlines only when the fit is rigorously tight. When a name begins with a lowercase letter, capitalize the first letter in all references: EBay, not eBay; EasyJet, not easyJet. If more than three letters in a row are capitalized, use lowercase for all but the first letter if the name doesn’t have to be spelled out when spoken: ABN Amro, rather than ABN AMRO. Simplify overly capitalized, symbolized or stylized names. Eliminate spaces between words, abbreviated words or initials as long as the name is readable: FedEx, PepsiCo, PetroChina, AstraZeneca, NCSoft. For companies whose name contains an internet domain, such as .com, include it on first reference in the story: Amazon.com, Priceline.com. Use the shortened name in headlines and on later references: Amazon, Priceline. Use an ampersand rather than the word and (or equivalents such as und, et, y), even when the company uses and in its formal name: Bradford & Bingley Plc, not Bradford and Bingley Plc. When a company uses an exclamation point, include it only for the first reference. Yahoo! Inc. on first reference; Yahoo on second reference and in headlines. Generally use the full name of the parent company on first reference. When the news is about a well-known unit, such as the British Airways business of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, put the unit’s name in the lead and the parent’s lower. For brokerages, use the parent’s name when it is similar to the unit’s, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., except when the context of the story requires drawing a distinction. When the names are dissimilar, use the brokerage name first and note who owns it lower.

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It’s acceptable to omit the parent name of well-known financialservices units that supply information used in stories. Don’t write the company throughout a story. Drop in the name at least occasionally. compared to, compared with Use compared to when citing similarities between items that are essentially different: United Continental is often compared to a rhinoceros. Use compared with when citing differences between items that are essentially similar: United Continental had a first-quarter profit of $3 million, compared with a loss of $97 million a year earlier. When numbers are directly comparable, use an active verb: United Continental’s shares outstanding fell to 12.3 million from 36.2 million. conglomerate Name a company’s main businesses instead: United Technologies Corp., which makes aircraft engines, elevators, helicopters and air conditioners. Don’t use in combination with an industry, as in financial conglomerate. Congo Include a reference to the former Zaire or say, “formerly known as Zaire.” In references to the similarly named country, use the full name Republic of Congo to differentiate. congress Uppercase only in proper names, such as the U.S. Congress. Lowercase when used as a generic reference to a country’s legislature. congressional terms Use these guidelines when writing stories about the U.S. Congress:  Titles: Representative and senator, along with their plurals, shouldn’t be abbreviated in references to members of the U.S. Congress. Capitalize titles in front of names: Senator Tammy Baldwin. Also write party affiliations and state names without abbreviating.

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Always include the affiliation and state somewhere in the story. Try to weave them into the narrative when possible: Arizona’s Republican senator, John McCain. Otherwise, put them after the name: Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California. Don’t capitalize titles when they are used without a specific name: McCain said no other senator would vote for the bill. Hunter said no other representatives would oppose the bill. Committee names: Capitalize the formal names of U.S. congressional committees, such as the Appropriations Committee, Agriculture Committee or Budget Committee. When referring to more than one, lowercase committees: the House and Senate Appropriations committees. Avoid using committee and subcommittee in the same phrase. As an example, for the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Power and Electricity, write a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on first reference and the Subcommittee on Power and Electricity on second reference. If a subcommittee has a long and disjointed name, such as the House Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Hazardous Materials, use the relevant portion. It’s acceptable in a story on hazardous materials, for example, to refer to the Subcommittee on Hazardous Materials. Legislation: Don’t include the names of bills. In almost every case, they are pure propaganda. After a bill becomes law, use the formal title if it’s well-known, such as No Child Left Behind, or a shorter description such as President George W. Bush’s education law. Include the bill number so that the story can be automatically archived on the legislation pages in BILL and on BGOV.com. The number can either be part of the narrative or a separate sentence at the bottom of the story. Examples: Separate from the tax-break extensions, the bill, H.R. 5771, would create a new type of tax-advantaged account.

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Or, as a last paragraph: The bill is H.R. 5771. When reporting on a bill, use pass only for action by the full House or Senate: The House passed the banking bill. The House and Senate adopt resolutions and amendments. They don’t pass them. Committees approve bills and resolutions. They don’t pass or adopt them. Clear has a very specific meaning in Congress. Use it only when Congress completes action on a bill and sends it to the president. Avoid markup, chairman’s mark, whip and any other terms that have little or no meaning outside the halls of Congress. It’s better to write that a committee will act on a bill rather than mark up a bill. Describe a chairman’s mark as a draft of a bill. Words such as reconciliation may be unavoidable even though they aren’t familiar to many people worldwide. When using them, provide an explanation. consensus Don’t use for analyst earnings estimates, which are averaged rather than agreed upon. consultancy Use consulting firm or consultants. continue What continues isn’t news. It’s better to use a historical comparison if nothing has changed. The economy grew for the sixth straight quarter is preferable to The economy continued to grow. contractions Use contractions in place of two-word phrases when the second word is “not”—wouldn’t, wasn’t, isn’t, can’t, don’t, won’t, hasn’t. It’s is acceptable when used occasionally. Other contractions with forms of to be or to have may be used when they sound natural: they’re, you’ve.

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Write both words rather than awkward constructions such as it’ll, they’d or mayn’t. convexity A measure of the change in duration of a bond as yields change. Callable bonds have a trait known as negative convexity, which means prices tend to drop more for an increase in yield than they rise for a decrease. Positive convexity means a bond’s price rises more for a drop in yield than it declines for the same increase in yield. Explain in stories. See duration. couldn’t be reached Imprecise. Explain the efforts that were made to reach a person. Note when such efforts were made outside of regular business hours or when a response wasn’t immediate.  Acme Chief Executive Officer John Smith didn’t return phone calls made to his office. Acme’s public-relations department didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. Smith’s assistant Jane Jones said he wasn’t available to comment.  credit crunch Provide a definition, such as saying people and businesses are having trouble paying their bills or banks are refusing to lend, and why. credit derivatives A broad group of securities that let buyers guard against a borrower’s missed debt payments. Credit derivatives include credit-default swaps, which are the most common, and collateralized debt obligations. Explain in stories. credit lines We usually mean bank financing or loan agreements, which are better terms to use. credit-default swap Credit-default swaps are contracts based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a borrower’s ability to repay debt

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or to hedge against losses on the debt. The buyer of a swap pays a premium and gets the face value of the debt in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent if the borrower fails to adhere to its debt agreements. The price of a credit-default swap typically declines when the perception of a borrower’s creditworthiness improves, and vice versa. Give prices of credit-default swaps in basis points rather than a currency. Stories should include a definition. currencies Use the currency of denomination in all references, including earnings and takeover values. After the first reference to non-U.S. dollar amounts, excluding share prices, provide a dollar conversion in parentheses immediately afterward: Sales increased 20 percent to 400 million euros ($431 million). Round conversions to the nearest million when the original amount is less than 1 billion, and to one decimal place for amounts of 1 billion or more. Examples: Profit rose to 674.3 million euros ($727 million) during the third quarter. Sales climbed to 3.84 billion euros ($4.1 billion). Use only the $ sign in all references to U.S. dollars. For non-U.S. dollars, use these abbreviations: A$ for Australia, C$ for Canada, HK$ for Hong Kong, NZ$ for New Zealand, S$ for Singapore, NT$ for Taiwan. For values less than $1, skip the dollar sign: 22 Canadian cents, not C$0.22. It’s acceptable on second reference to use a nickname for dollar currencies—Canada’s loonie, New Zealand’s kiwi, Australia’s Aussie and the U.S. greenback—to provide variety and reduce word echoes. Avoid overusing. These European currencies may be abbreviated in standalone headlines and in speed fills when referring to amounts: EU for euro, CHF for Swiss franc, DK for Danish krone, NK for Norwegian krone, and SK for Swedish krona. Place the abbreviation before the figure, no space. Not acceptable in story headlines. Examples: NK500 Million, CHF3.5 Billion.

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Write other currencies as full words after the figure in all uses. Don’t use symbols for currencies such as the yen, the euro and the British pound: 500 million pounds. For amounts of less than one unit, identify the country before the measure when necessary to distinguish between currencies: 10 Canadian cents, 25 Mexican centavos. Round all the amounts to whole numbers: 5 cents, not 4.8 cents. When referring to emerging market currencies’ record highs or lows, include dates to reflect devaluations and changes in the currency. To convert currencies, use the FXCA function. The following is a list of common currency-related terms:  carry trade: The investor makes money by borrowing in a country with low interest rates, converting the money to a currency where interest rates are higher, and lending the money at that higher rate. The profit comes from the spread between the borrowing and lending rates. The risk is that exchange rates may change. currency band: Range within which a government allows a currency to fluctuate. If it trades outside the range, the government buys or sells the currency to bring it back into the zone. Explain in stories. currency board: Maintains a government-set, fixed exchange rate for the country’s currency by taking control of monetary policy from a central bank. The board backs the country’s notes and coins with reserves of another currency, such as the dollar or the euro. Provide the description rather than use this term. currency peg: Link to another currency or fixed exchange rate, typically resulting from government decree. Hong Kong pegs its dollar at the rate of 7.8 per U.S. dollar; supply and demand in foreign-exchange markets then establishes a market rate. Other links can take the form of a crawling peg, in which a government targets its currency’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar or some other currency.

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currency swap: An agreement between two parties to exchange their periodic interest-rate payments based on a set amount of money, though in different currencies, for a set amount of time. This typically involves the exchange of principal so that each party has an asset that can generate interest payments. Explain in stories. exchange rate: Value of one currency in terms of another. The rate can be fixed or floating. Fixed rates are tied to a specific value of another currency, such as the dollar or the euro, or a commodity such as gold. Floating rates reflect the supply and demand in foreign-exchange markets. exchange-rate mechanism: Established as part of the European monetary system to limit the extent of movement, or price fluctuation, in exchange rates between the participating countries. Succeeded on Jan. 1, 1999, by exchange-rate mechanism-2. Avoid the abbreviations ERM and ERM-2.  data When citing statistics or other information compiled by Bloomberg, use according to data compiled by Bloomberg on first reference. Be more succinct in later references: according to Bloomberg data. Data should be treated as a plural noun in stories. When reporters or editors survey sources to tally estimates or forecasts, use a specific reference as well: according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Cite the number of analysts when relevant. Big data refers to the vast quantity of data amassed by businesses, governments and universities that requires powerful computers for storage and analysis. Big data doesn’t need to be capitalized, enclosed in quotation marks or preceded by “so-called.” date format Put the date after the month: May 27; Sept. 2; Jan. 1, 2002. When combined with a date, abbreviate long months as Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. Never abbreviate March, April, May, June or July.

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Months shouldn’t be abbreviated in standalone references such as September, or in month-year references such as January 2002. Don’t abbreviate when using months to define a range: JanuaryMarch, October-December. Avoid using this format to define periods: fourth quarter is preferable to October-December quarter. When a story refers to a future event, give the time, date and location, if available. days and dates Reporting requires a time reference that will be exact for readers around the world. Give the day in the place where the news occurred rather than today, tomorrow or yesterday. Use days of the week along with a location in most instances. Readers know when “Tuesday in New York” is, even if it’s Monday or Wednesday in their own time zone. For days further back than yesterday, or further ahead than tomorrow, give the date: Jan. 5 in Kuala Lumpur. Also provide the date if it’s more transparent. If someone says that action will be taken by Feb. 4 to meet a Feb. 5 deadline, Feb. 4 is more helpful than writing Wednesday. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are acceptable in direct quotations so long as the context makes the timeline clear. If contrasting a number or other information to yesterday’s, use a day earlier. Earlier today should instead be earlier Friday, for example, or earlier in the day if the day has already been named. Use only when needed to indicate that the news is a reaction to something that happened hours ago, and make the progression of time clear. Last week, next week, last month, next month, last year and next year references require particular care. When the period is about to end, or has just begun, the difference in time zones can throw readers off by a large margin. The trickiest is weeks that start on Saturday, Sunday or Monday, depending on the country. When the week/month/year is on the cusp, give a date, month, year or other specific time.

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Convey approximate time frames with expressions such as a few days ago, in three weeks, in about three months, earlier in July. Always use exact dates for opinion polls. Days of the week may be used in story headlines and TOP headlines for days in the future, not more than six days out. The wording must make clear that it’s a future rather than a past day, e.g., Cardinals Set Tuesday as Start Date for Conclave to Select New Pontiff. See date format and time of day. dealers Traders is preferable. death Use die as the verb in an obituary or other news story about a death. It may be appropriate to say someone succumbed to a particular cause. Euphemisms such as passed away are unnecessary and may not be universally understood. For a death that isn’t recent, refer to the person’s death or say the person is deceased. debt holder Not debtholder. decimals Use CV to convert to fractions if needed. For details on rounding, see rounding. declined comment Write declined to comment rather than declined comment. Be specific and say what the person declined to comment about. deflation, disinflation Deflation is the opposite of inflation. It means a general drop in prices, often as part of a severe economic slowdown. Disinflation means a slowing of inflation, often during a recession. Explain both in stories.

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demerger British jargon for a company’s decision to split into two or more companies, or to reorganize part of its business into a separate company. Don’t use. derivatives Either of these definitions for derivatives may be used, depending on how full an explanation is needed in the context: Derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in interest rates or the weather. Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events like changes in the weather or interest rates. Options and futures are the most common types of derivatives. devaluation Decline in a currency’s value that results from a change in government fiat or decree. Differs from depreciation, which results solely from changes in supply and/or demand in currency markets. Diet Acceptable in references to Japan’s legislature, or parliament. diluted earnings per share One of two earnings figures that most companies report. Diluted reflects all securities that may become common shares, such as options, warrants and convertible bonds. Use these numbers when possible instead of basic earnings per share, which are based solely on common shares outstanding. dot-com When referring to companies that have .com in their names, include the .com on first reference: Amazon.com, not Amazon. Use the shortened name in headlines and in all subsequent references: Amazon, Overstock.

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Downing Street On first reference, information from 10 Downing Street should be attributed to the British prime minister’s advisers or to the person who supplied it. On second reference, attribution to Downing Street is acceptable. downsize Choose more specific wording. Is the company selling some product lines? Is the person moving to a smaller house? downstream, upstream downstream: Refers to refining and marketing businesses in the oil industry. Provide the description instead. upstream: Refers to exploration and production in the oil and gas industry. Refers in the telecommunications industry to a signal that travels from a customer’s equipment to a network. Provide the description instead. Dubai This city in the United Arab Emirates stands alone. Dubai also is the name of one of the seven emirates making up the UAE. DuPont Co. Acceptable for first reference to E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co. Write DuPont as one word, not two. DuPont on second reference. duration An estimate of how much the price of a bond will change when interest rates rise or fall. Bonds with longer maturities, such as 10 or 30 years, typically have greater duration than shorter-term debt of two or five years, for instance. That means a drop of one basis point in the yield of a 10-year note will push the price up more than a similar move in yield on a two-year note. Explain in stories. See convexity. Dusseldorf Not Duesseldorf. Needs Germany on first reference.

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Dutch auction An offer in which investors can specify the price, within a set range, at which they are willing to buy or sell. Explain in stories. Earnouts Payments made by the buyer of a business to the seller if profits exceed a set limit. Explain rather than use this jargon. Ebitda Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Measures profitability of companies, especially those dependent on debt financing or operating under bankruptcy protection. This isn’t the same as most types of cash flow. Ebitda is acceptable in headlines. Write the full term on first reference in text and then explain. Election terms Front-runner: Hyphenate. Fundraiser as a noun; fundraising as a noun or adjective. Midterm: No hyphen. PAC: Acceptable as an abbreviation for political action committee in headlines and on first reference. Spell out somewhere in the story. Policy maker, policy making as nouns. Policy-making as adjective. Politicking: Spell with a k. Poll, to describe results of scientific sampling with a quantifiable margin of error. Survey, for other opinion gathering, such as analyst or economist views. Re-elect, re-elected, re-electing, re-election. Hyphenate all. Sound bite: Two words as a noun. Super PAC, super PACs. Capitalize super only at the start of a sentence and in headlines. Political labels such as liberal, conservative, moderate, left and right mean different things to different people. Avoid when possible, or cite examples of their meaning. email Acceptable in all references to electronic mail. Not e-mail.

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embassy Capitalize embassy when immediately preceded by a country name in noun or adjective form: the Egyptian Embassy, the U.S. Embassy, the Netherlands Embassy, the Dutch Embassy. Lowercase without the name of a nation: embassy workers, a fire at the embassy. Also lowercase plural references: all French embassies. Emirates Emirates is the one-word name of this airline owned by the Dubai government. When identifying its business, use airline lowercase: Dubai’s Emirates airline is in talks with Boeing Co. eponymous An eponymous name is one derived from any real or mythical person. Every school, building, airport, highway and bridge named after John F. Kennedy is eponymous. A company named for its founder is a namesake company rather than eponymous. If an explanation is necessary, provide the facts rather than write eponymous to characterize the relationship between names. Ericsson AB Acceptable for first reference to Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson. Ericsson on second reference. estimate, forecast For company earnings and sales, write that analysts give estimates while companies supply forecasts. The figure from analysts is an estimate, a rough calculation, because they don’t have as much information as the company. The company’s number is a forecast because it’s a projection based on more complete knowledge. euro A single currency used by 19 countries in the European Union. Eleven countries introduced the euro on Jan. 1, 1999.

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One euro consists of 100 cents. Write 20 cents rather than 0.2 euro; 15.70 euros rather than 15.7 euros; 36 euros rather than 36.00 euros. Never use the symbol for the euro. Lithuania began using the euro Jan. 1, 2015, joining Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. euro zone Acceptable reference to the European Union countries that adopted the euro as their currency. Phrases such as countries that share the euro, euro region and euro area are preferable. Hyphenate as an adjective: euro-zone economy. Don’t use the term euroland. Eurodollars Dollars held in banks outside the U.S. and typically used to settle international transactions. The Euro- prefix also applies to other currencies. Japanese yen deposited outside Japan are called Euroyen. European Institutions   Common Agricultural Policy: The European Union’s agricultural subsidy program, under which the EU pays direct subsidies to farmers, guaranteeing them minimum prices for their products. Use CAP on second reference. Council of Europe: A forum of 47 nations designed to promote human rights and democracy. It’s based in Strasbourg, France, and oversees the European Court of Human Rights. Not part of the European Union. Ecofin: Council of European Union finance ministers, which normally meets once a month in Brussels. Avoid this term and refer to meetings of EU finance ministers. euro group: Informal group of finance ministers from countries that have adopted the European Union currency. Normally convenes before monthly meetings of the council of EU finance ministers.

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European Banking Federation: Brussels-based trade group whose full name is the Banking Federation of the European Union. The group publishes two sets of benchmark money market rates: Euribor and Eonia. Euribor, the euro interbank offered rate, is a benchmark for money market rates in euros, calculated from bank rates in countries that have adopted the common currency. Eonia, the euro overnight index average, is an effective rate for overnight loans denominated in euros. It’s calculated from money market trading between banks in countries that have adopted the common currency. Euribor and Eonia are acceptable in headlines and on second reference. European Central Bank: Sets monetary policy for countries that have adopted the euro. The Governing Council, consisting of a six-member Executive Board and the governors of the countries’ central banks, makes policy decisions. May be abbreviated as ECB in headlines and on second reference. The ECB, based in Frankfurt, succeeded the European Monetary Institute on July 1, 1998. European Commission: Brussels-based executive body of the European Union. Consists of 28 commissioners. Use commission on second reference. Never abbreviate to EC, which stands for the European Community. Refer to commissioners by their titles: the European commissioner in charge of financial services,Valdis Dombrovskis. European Court of Justice: Final arbiter of disputes arising from European Union treaties or legislation. Based in Luxembourg. European Investment Bank: Lending arm of the European Union. Based in Luxembourg. European Monetary Union: Acceptable shorthand for European Economic and Monetary Union, the process that led to the creation of the euro. Don’t use the abbreviation EMU. European Parliament: Elected assembly of the European Union. Based in Strasbourg, France. Plays a role in shaping legislation and managing the EU budget.

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European Union: The European Union is made up of 28 countries with economic and political links. It succeeded the European Community. EU is acceptable on second reference. The EU may be referred to as a group or partnership but not as a region. The 28 member states are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. (though Britain plans to exit the EU in 2019). Eurostat: Statistics agency of the European Union. Based in Luxembourg.  expected News is a surprise, and something that is expected doesn’t qualify. Using plans, may or will is preferable. When the alternatives don’t work, make it clear who is doing the expecting on first reference: Economists expect the report to show, rather than the passive construction The report is expected to show. expiry Use expire and expiration when referring to futures and options contracts, not expiry. export-import banks Use the full English-language name of export-import banks on first reference, such as:  U.S. Export-Import Bank Export-Import Bank of India Export-Import Bank of China Export-Import Bank of Malaysia Magyar Export-Import Bank Export-Import Bank of Korea African Export-Import Bank  

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Write the export-import bank or the ex-im bank on second reference. The trade bank or a specific reference such as Hungary’s trade bank or the Malaysian ex-im bank may also be used. Capitalize ex-im only in headlines: Republicans Will Allow Ex-Im Bank to Expire Under Senate Plan. Eximbank, EximBank, Ex-Im, Exim, exim and nicknames such as Afreximbank aren’t acceptable. Export-import banks, which help finance exports of local goods, typically are government agencies or government-backed. Export credit agencies, common in Europe, perform a similar role and may be private or quasi-governmental. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Use the full names in stories on all references. The short forms are acceptable only in direct quotations. Avoid shortening to Fannie or Freddie in headlines except when the fit is rigorously tight. FARC FARC may be used in headlines and on second reference for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. farther, further Farther refers to distance: He ran farther down the street. Further refers to extent: They moved further toward the goal of independence or Her projections look further into the future. FBI Acceptable in headlines and on first reference to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Use the full name in a later reference high in the story. fear It’s a presumptuous judgment to describe people as fearful unless they are on the record saying, “I’m afraid.” That attributed evidence should be supplied in the story.

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federal funds Money that U.S. banks have on deposit at Federal Reserve banks. In the federal funds market, banks borrow and lend deposits that exceed the Fed’s reserve requirements. The shorthand fed funds is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. The Fed sets a target for the rate on overnight loans. On first reference, write the Fed’s interest-rate target for overnight loans between banks, unless the story has already defined fed funds. On second reference, the fed funds target is sufficient. Avoid referring to the Fed’s target interest rate. The Fed doesn’t have a target interest rate per se. Federal Open Market Committee Determines U.S. monetary policy. Includes the Federal Reserve Board’s seven members and the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, one of 12 regional banks. Four other Fed bank presidents are entitled to vote on a rotating basis. The rest participate only in the panel’s discussions. Sets target for the overnight federal funds rate, at which U.S. banks lend money to each other, and approves Fed statements assessing conditions on the economy and financial markets. FOMC is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. Federal Reserve U.S. central bank. Write Federal Reserve on first reference. Fed is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. The bank is run by the Federal Reserve Board, consisting of a chairman, vice chairman and five governors who oversee the Federal Reserve System’s 12 regional banks. Federal Reserve Board may be shortened to Fed board on second reference, with a lowercase b. The full name, usually not needed, is Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. All board members and some bank presidents are voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, which determines monetary policy. Write governor as a full word rather than abbreviating, in all references: Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo or Daniel Tarullo, a governor at the Federal Reserve.

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female, woman Use female as an adjective, and woman and women as nouns. Write girl only for those under the age of 18. fewer, less Use fewer for things that can be counted: fewer supporters, fewer bowls of cereal, fewer hours of work. Use less for things that are measured but not counted: less support, less cereal, less work, less space, less coverage, less time. Financial Services Administration FSA is acceptable in headlines and on second reference for a nation’s financial services agency. The country name must be used with FSA in the headline and on first reference. Finra The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, oversees U.S. securities firms and brokers. It polices trading on stock exchanges, tests and licenses brokers, and disciplines those who break its rules. Although not a U.S. government agency, the not-for-profit organization gets its power from Congress. fire, lay off Use fired or dismissed rather than euphemisms such as laid off or made redundant when a group of workers lose their jobs without the probability of being rehired. It’s also acceptable to say the positions were eliminated or cut. In some countries, reporting that someone was fired without describing the basis for the termination can lead to a libel lawsuit. Don’t use fired or ousted for an individual without a company memo or on-the-record confirmation to support the assertion. fiscal periods Specify the last day of a fiscal reporting period only when it doesn’t correspond with the calendar. Otherwise, it’s redundant. The first quarter ended Jan. 31 is fine. The first quarter ended March 31 isn’t, as quarters typically end on March 31, June 30, Sept. 30 or Dec. 31.

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For companies that report semiannually, the standard ending dates are June 30 and Dec. 31, except in Japan, where periods end Sept. 30 and March 31. Note the last day of a nonstandard fiscal period on first or second reference. When doing the latter, use fiscal on first reference to tip off the audience unless the word bogs down the lead. Put the word before the number of the period: fiscal third quarter, not third fiscal quarter. Avoid putting at before a specific date, such as total assets at March 31. Use as of or on instead. Use ended if the fiscal period is over; ending if it isn’t:  Earnings in the fiscal first quarter rose 28 percent. Revenue in the quarter ended July 31 fell 2 percent. The company forecast net income of 3 cents a share for the quarter ending Nov. 30. flotation Avoid this jargon, and use sale instead when writing about share sales. forego, forgo Forego means to go before, to precede. Forgo means to do without, to abstain. foreign reserves Write foreign currencies when referring to central banks’ holdings of currencies other than their own. Foreign reserves could refer to a German company’s coal mine in Russia, for example. foreign words Use only the foreign words and abbreviations that have become widely accepted in American English. Bon voyage is universally understood, while hoi polloi, Greek for the common people, isn’t. If use of an unfamiliar foreign term is necessary, place it in quotation marks and attribute to its source. forwards Agreements to buy or sell assets such as currencies or metals at a set price and date. Forwards differ from futures in that they aren’t

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traded on exchanges and can be tailored to a buyer’s or seller’s needs. See futures. fractions Use words for fractions whose denominator is two through nine: a half, a fourth, two-thirds, five-eighths, three-quarters. Use numerals when the denominator is 10 or more, or when the value is more than 1: a 10th, a 16th, 2 1/2 years, 1 1/4 points. The fraction counts as a digit in the last two examples, and two-digit numbers are written as numerals rather than words. Avoid unnecessary use of fractions, which can be difficult to read. Some numbers need to be that precise. In other situations, it’s easier for people to comprehend if the number is rounded: instead of the highest price in 2 1/2 months, write the highest price in more than two months. Use CV to convert to decimals if necessary. FTC Abbreviation for both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Japan’s Fair Trade Commission. When the abbreviation FTC appears in headlines, include the country name when needed to make the context clear. funds from operations Used to measure performance of U.S. real estate investment trusts, or REITs, and to determine dividends. Defined as net income plus depreciation and amortization, excluding gains or losses from joint ventures or property sales. Explain in stories. futures Agreements to buy or sell assets at a set price and date. Futures differ from forwards in that they are traded on exchanges and are standardized. Futures are often bought as a bet on price fluctuations and sold before the delivery date. See forwards. G-7, G-8, G-10, G-20 The Group of Seven consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.

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The Group of Eight consists of the G-7 plus Russia. It was created in 1989 by the G-7, which suspended the group and has met without Russia since March 2014. The Group of 10 consists of the G-7 plus Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The Group of 20 consists of the European Union and 19 countries with the biggest industrialized and emerging economies. Finance ministers expanded beyond the G-10 after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, and member finance chiefs began consulting at regular meetings in November 2008. G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the U.S., the U.K. and the EU. G-7, G-8, G-10 and G-20 are acceptable in headlines and on second reference. GAAP In the U.S., refers to generally accepted accounting principles. The abbreviation is acceptable on second reference. gasoline Use the full word gasoline rather than the shortened gas, to prevent confusion with natural gas. The short form is acceptable in idioms such as gas station or gas-guzzling cars. global depositary receipts Not depository. These securities represent a stake in a non-U.S. company and usually trade outside the U.S. GDR is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. Avoid the alternative global depositary shares. GM, GMO Write genetically modified or genetically modified organisms, rather than GM or GMO, in headlines and copy.

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goodwill The amount exceeding fair value of the net assets paid for in an acquisition at the time of purchase. Fair value is the estimated market price of the related assets and liabilities at the time of acquisition. The goodwill that is recorded on an acquirer’s books at the time of a purchase is evaluated at least annually under U.S. accounting rules. If the value of the acquired assets permanently declines, the company writes down goodwill to the residual amount. governments Capitalize names of national legislatures, including Parliament, Congress, Senate, House and National Assembly, even without the country name attached: Macdonald joined Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, in 2010. Parliament, upper house and other terms aren’t capped as a generic description, such as the Diet being Japan’s parliament or the Folketing being Denmark’s parliament: Hashimoto is seeking to win as many as 200 of the 480 seats in the Japanese parliament’s lower house. When a non-English name can be directly translated into English, it’s acceptable to write both names, such as the Congreso Nacional or National Congress, when appropriate. Capitalize the names of state and local governing bodies—such as legislature, council, senate, house, board—only when used with a place name: Florida Legislature, Indiana General Assembly, Richmond Borough Council, Saugatuck Township Board, the legislature, the council, the board. governor Capitalize before the name of officials such as a U.S. Federal Reserve Board member or a state’s top officeholder: Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin. Don’t abbreviate as Gov. grand jury When writing about investigations, be precise in order to avoid confusion. U.S. state and federal grand juries examine evidence presented

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by prosecutors in suspected crimes to determine whether there is probable cause to show that someone broke the law. Once an investigation begins, a company or an event can be the subject of a probe. If a grand jury begins to focus on a suspect, it will send a letter stating that the subject is now a target. If the jury finds probable cause, it issues a bill of indictment or a bill of information. An indictment is similar to a criminal charge. A bill of information is usually a prelude to a guilty plea. Grand juries return or issue an indictment. They don’t hand up or hand down an indictment. Those terms are used colloquially but we shouldn’t use them in stories. greenback Acceptable on second reference for the U.S. dollar, to provide variety and reduce word echoes. Avoid overusing. grow Use as a transitive verb only for living things: grow flowers, grow a mustache, grow antlers. Avoid using grow with a direct object when the meaning is expand or increase. Don’t write grow the business, grow revenue, grow enrollment. Grow is acceptable as an intransitive verb meaning expand or increase. A surplus, profit or membership may grow. Gulf It’s acceptable on second reference to write the Gulf for specific locations, such as the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico. haircut Define on first reference, as haircut has multiple uses as a financial term. Not acceptable in headlines. Haircut may refer to a discount applied by a lender to the price of a security, such as a government or corporate bond, used as collateral in transactions such as central bank liquidity or repurchase operations. Haircut also can be used to describe losses, such as those imposed on private creditors in Greece’s bond restructuring.

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halve Avoid using as a verb for decline. Fell by half or fell 50 percent has more impact than halved. Hanover Not Hannover. Needs Germany on first reference. headline capitalization Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, regardless of their length. Short verbs sometimes overlooked include Be, Is, Are, Buy, See and Use. All words of four or more letters are capitalized, including prepositions and conjunctions. Also cap If, So, But and Nor. Capitalize a preposition that ends an expression such as Hang On or Write Off. hedge funds Hedge funds are mostly private pools of capital whose managers participate substantially in the profits from their speculation on whether the price of assets will rise or fall. Stories should name the management firm, and name or describe some of its funds. Which to put first depends on whether the fund or company is better known and/or more central to the news. The other may appear several paragraphs later. Don’t consign it to the bottom of the story. hedging Using financial instruments to guard against adverse swings in interest rates, currencies or other securities. For example, a European investor buying U.S. stocks might reduce currency risk by locking in an exchange rate for the dollar for the period of the investment. Hezbollah Use this spelling. The name means Party of God. Stories should include background on what the group is and where it comes from.

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high-frequency trading The use of computers to process a large number of orders rapidly, based on algorithms that make buy-and-sell decisions. It may be abbreviated as HFT in headlines and on second reference in stories. high-yield bonds, junk bonds Junk bonds is acceptable on first reference, followed by an explanation that they are high-yield, high-risk debt. Elaborate lower that they are rated below BBB- by S&P Global Ratings and Baa3 by Moody’s. hive off Use the appropriate term in American English when referring to a company’s disposal of a business: spin off, divest or sell. holders Noteholders, stockholders, bondholders; debt holders, debenture holders. hyphens Use hyphens for clarity and to avoid ambiguity. Some guidelines apply, particularly with compound modifiers. Other words include or exclude hyphens because of convention. For example, after-tax has a hyphen, pretax doesn’t. See A-Z list below. When a compound modifier precedes a noun, use hyphens to link each word except when the modifier begins with very or an adverb that ends in -ly: first-quarter profit; full-time job; larger-than-estimated loss; closely held company. Use 12-million-unit purchase (singular) to refer to a purchase of 12 million units (plural). Hyphens are essential when the meaning might otherwise be unclear. Black cab driver could mean a black driver of any cab; blackcab driver makes it clear the reference is to a driver of a traditional London taxi. Many compound modifiers that are hyphenated before a noun aren’t hyphenated after a noun: Analysts estimate that the company will report a larger profit for the first quarter; She works full time.

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When a compound modifier appears after the verb to be, the hyphen usually must be retained: George is well-known. It’s the world’s second-biggest. Don’t use a hyphen for French Canadian or Latin American. In headlines, capitalize the first letter of the word following a hyphen: State-Owned, Second-Largest. Numbers. When a numeral begins a compound modifier, hyphenate between the numeral and the unit of measure except with currency amounts and percentages: 10-year period, 12-day rally, 25-basis-point increase, $14 trillion industry, 23 billion-pound purchase, 28 percent gain. Percentages. Don’t hyphenate percentages in compound modifiers: 14 percent gain, not 14-percent gain. Rankings. Hyphenate when used as a compound modifier: second-largest U.S. discount retailer. Use a hyphen when the modifier stands alone after a form of the verb to be: The cable maker is the world’s second-biggest.  A-Z hyphen list After-tax, not aftertax Antitrust, not anti-trust Asia-Pacific (as compound modifier). Don’t use as a standalone name. Asset-backed (when used as modifier) Big-data (when used as modifier) Bond ratings. AA rated bond, not AA-rated bond Break-even (adjective) Break even (verb) Buy-side/sell-side (when used as modifier) Cease-fire, not ceasefire or cease fire Closely held company, not closely-held company Collateralized debt obligation, not collateralized-debt obligation Cram-down (noun or adjective) Cram down (verb), not cramdown Credit-default swap, not credit default swap Creditworthy, not credit-worthy Dot-com, not dotcom

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E. Coli, not e.coli, e. coli, e-coli or E-coli Email, not e-mail Euro-zone (adjective) euro zone (noun) -Fold. Hyphenate when the number is 10 or more: Sevenfold, 10-fold Front-runner, not frontrunner Health-care (adjective) Health care (noun) -ly. Adverbs ending in -ly don’t take hyphens -Maker. One-syllable words can take -maker as a suffix if they refer to established trades or industries: chipmaker, drugmaker, steelmaker, glassmaker, toymaker, yachtmaker. Automaker also is acceptable. Keep maker as a separate word otherwise: aircraft maker, computer-chip maker, policy maker. Hyphenate as compound modifier: policy-making panel. Use two words if the combination of letters is awkward in a single word: jam maker, game maker, arms maker. Maker is preferable to longer synonyms, such as producer or manufacturer. Midterm, not mid-term Multi- Hyphen usually not needed after the prefix: multimillionaire, not multi-millionaire. Hyphenate as compound modifier: multibillion-dollar market Natural gas/liquefied natural gas. No hyphens when used as modifier: natural gas prices, not natural-gas prices Non- Usually no hyphen after the prefix (follow Webster’s New World College Dictionary): nonprofit, not non-profit Pretax, not pre-tax Private equity. Don’t hyphenate as modifier. Private equity firm, not private-equity firm Real estate. Don’t hyphenate as modifier. Real estate market, not real-estate market Re-elect, re-elected, re-electing, re-election Shipbuilder, not ship-builder Ship owner, not shipowner Short sale, short seller, not short-sale, short-seller. Hyphenate as adjective: Short-sale reporting

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Small-business owner, not small business owner Supercomputer, not super-computer Super-PAC, not Super PAC Wal-Mart, not Wal Mart,Walmart or WalMart whistle-blower, not whistleblower Wi-Fi, not Wifi or WiFi Write-off (noun) Write off (verb)  if If means in the event that, while whether suggests alternatives. I can’t go if you drive.Whether I go depends on who is driving. Capitalize If in headlines. IMF Acceptable in headlines and on first reference to the International Monetary Fund. Use the full name in a later reference high in the story. immigrants Use undocumented rather than illegal to describe a worker or other immigrant who is residing in a country without a visa or other necessary papers. Describing someone as illegal is imprecise and dehumanizing. An act may be illegal, but a person isn’t. Undocumented immigrant or undocumented worker is clearer. implied volatility A measure of a security’s expected volatility reflected by the market price of the options traded on the security. It’s used to value options. indexes Not indices. Indian place names India is gradually changing the English spelling of many place names. Use the new names once they are adopted by law and become official.

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Except for Mumbai, which is widely recognized as the former Bombay, remind readers of the earlier name: Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore. Chennai, the city previously known as Madras. Kolkata, the city formerly known as Calcutta. Don’t substitute the new names in proper names of companies or institutions, such as the University of Madras. inflation Rising prices. Inflation may accelerate, or the inflation rate may rise. Writing rising inflation or higher inflation is redundant. inflationary pressure Refer instead to signs of accelerating inflation. ING Groep NV Use the Dutch spelling of Group in all references to the financialservices company. initial public offering The first time that a company’s shares are sold to the public. Write initial public offering rather than initial public offer. IPO is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. Stories about an IPO should give the security’s ticker: The shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol XYZ. insiders Officers, directors and major shareholders of a company. Always provide the definition. interbank rates Rates at which banks will lend money to each other for a specified period. Use offered rates, not offer rates. Capitalize only the first letter of all abbreviations.  Euribor: the euro interbank offered rate Libor: London interbank offered rate Shibor: Shanghai interbank offered rate

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Sibor: Singapore interbank offered rate Stibor: Stockholm interbank offered rate Tibor: Tokyo interbank offered rate  interest-rate swap This exchange of cash flows is one of the most common types of derivatives. It’s an agreement between two parties to exchange their periodic interest-rate payments for a set amount of time. Typically, one party will swap its variable-rate payments on a set amount of money for another’s fixed-rate payments. Borrowers use swaps to match the type of interest rates on their debt with the rates on their income, which can help reduce borrowing costs. Lenders and speculators use swaps to profit from changes in the direction of interest rates. A bet on higher rates, for example, means paying fixed rates and receiving variable rates. international bonds Any bond sold outside the country of the seller’s domicile. These include eurobonds, Samurai bonds and Yankee bonds. Eurobonds are unregistered corporate or sovereign debt issued in a currency different from the market where the borrower is based. The term predates the 1999 establishment of the euro. Eurobonds generally can’t be sold in the U.S., except sometimes to qualified institutions. A euro bond is debt issued in euros by borrowers within the currency bloc. Joint euro bonds or common euro bonds refers to debt instruments that could be issued jointly by the nations that use the currency. Global bonds are debt securities sold simultaneously in several markets. Global bonds are generally more available to individual U.S. investors than eurobonds. Some international bonds are known by nicknames to denote the country and currency in which the securities are sold. The following terms are acceptable in headlines and on second reference:  Dim Sum bonds: Chinese yuan-denominated debt sold in Hong Kong and outside China.

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Dragon bonds: debt denominated in U.S. dollars and sold in Asian countries outside Japan. Kangaroo bonds: Australian dollar-denominated debt sold in Australia by foreign borrowers. Kimchi bonds: debt sold in South Korea by foreign borrowers, denominated in currencies other than the South Korean won. Kiwi bonds: debt denominated in New Zealand dollars, sold in that country by foreign borrowers. Maple bonds: debt denominated in Canadian dollars, sold in Canada by foreign borrowers. Panda bonds: debt denominated in Chinese yuan and sold in China by a foreign borrower. Samurai bonds: yen-denominated debt sold in Japan by foreign borrowers. Uridashi bonds: Debt denominated in currencies other than the yen and sold to individual investors in Japan. Yankee bonds: Dollar-denominated debt sold in the U.S. by foreign borrowers.  intervention Intervention may be used to describe government actions in the currency markets so long as a specific explanation of the term is provided. Central banks intervene when they buy or sell currencies to influence exchange rates. inventory When companies blame disappointing earnings on excess inventory, focus on the events that led to the excess, such as lower-thanexpected demand or a glut of competing products. Use the plural inventories only when referring to more than one company or more than one time period. Investor AB A holding company controlled by Sweden’s Wallenberg family. Include the AB designation in all headlines to prevent confusion.

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iPad, iPhone, iPod, iTunes Follow Apple Inc.’s style for spelling the product names in text: iPad, iPhone, iPod, iTunes. In headlines, capitalize the first letter because the words are nouns: IPad, IPhone, IPod, ITunes. Iraq War Capitalize Iraq War. It’s also acceptable to write the war in Iraq or the Iraq conflict. Islamic State Islamic State is the al-Qaeda splinter group that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria. Use Islamic State as the full name; it’s acceptable to abbreviate to IS in headlines and on second reference. Identify Islamic State as soon as possible as insurgent or militant, and note that it is Sunni Muslim. When Islamic State is in the first or second paragraph, put this information high enough to appear within the first few paragraphs. When the group is mentioned lower in a story, the size and scope should be inserted as close as possible. Supply background when a quote contains a version of the former name, such as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant or the abbreviations ISIL or ISIS, and with other situations that require explanation. Note when relevant that the group declared a caliphate for territory it controls in Iraq and Syria. Write Islamic State rather than the Islamic State for the extremist group, as Iran and several other countries are Islamic states. issuance Bond-market word for sale, which would be a better choice. issuer In connection with securities sales, name the seller, such as a company or government. it, its, it’s Its is the possessive form of it. “The company’s earnings were released last week” could become “Its earnings were released last week.”

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It’s is the contraction for it is. “The company is releasing earnings next week” could become “It’s releasing earnings next week.” Don’t use it, its and it’s so much that a sentence or paragraph becomes difficult to understand. jargon Fields such as business, finance, economics, science and technology are rife with jargon: choppy trade, guidance, to the upside, price target. Translate jargon into language that everyone can understand. If a term is unavoidable, include a short definition. Jeddah Needs Saudi Arabia on first reference. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Not J.P. with periods. Kathmandu Kathmandu, Nepal. Use this spelling for the capital city, rather than Katmandu. Koninklijke Dutch word for Royal. Appears in some company names. Use Royal in all references: Royal Philips Electronics NV. Koran The holy book of Islam. Not Quran. kroner Plural of Norway’s krone and Denmark’s krone. kronor Plural of Sweden’s krona. lag behind Include the preposition with the intransitive verb: lags behind rivals, rather than lags rivals.

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legal terms   admit, admitted: May be used in stories involving legal proceedings when someone has actually admitted wrongdoing or an allegation made by another party to the proceedings. May also be used to indicate when material (e.g., testimony, documents) is admitted into evidence by the court. Avoid as a substitute for said in other contexts as it can imply bias on our part, including that the writer thinks the person wasn’t telling the truth before, or that the information is somehow damaging. alleged, allegedly: In stories involving legal matters, use alleged or allegedly when reporting an unproven assertion of fact. Always attribute the allegation to whoever is making it. When a statement is clearly attributed to a court document, judge, prosecutor or other judicial body, alleged or allegedly aren’t needed. Be careful to accurately attribute the source of statements in court records, and to make clear whether the speaker is simply repeating someone else’s allegation and not necessarily adopting it. For example, sometimes what sounds like a statement from the court is really the court’s recitation of a party’s unproven allegations. charged, guilty, acquitted: Use these terms only in a criminal context. Don’t describe civil lawsuits in terms normally reserved for criminal cases. claim: Should generally be used only in a legal context, such as an allegation in a lawsuit: He sued the restaurant, claiming that it served spoiled food. Avoid it in other contexts because it suggests the writer doesn’t believe what the person is saying: The CEO claimed profits will double this year. class-action lawsuit: Use only in connection with suits that a judge certified as class actions. Before then, plaintiffs seek classaction status for their suit. The action can be referred to as a proposed class action if it hasn’t yet been certified. lawsuit: Use to refer to the totality of a litigation. If we are referring to a complaint or other court filing, we should refer to the specific document.

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legal citations: Always specify the legal citation in the last paragraph of any story that discusses specific court cases: This case is Widget Inc. v. Acme Corp., 104CV023626, Santa Clara County Superior Court. named: Only use when a person or company is designated as a defendant in the case. Don’t use for people or organizations that are referenced in a court filing but haven’t actually been sued themselves. settle: When using in stories about legal matters, be as specific as possible about the terms on which the sides came to agreement. Include any financial terms and any admission or finding of wrongdoing. If a party neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, include that. And if the settlement terms are private, tell our audience. target: Only use when our reporting shows that an investigating agency has explicitly identified a person or company as a target of an investigation. Similarly, in the context of an investigation, only use subject when an investigating agency has explicitly identified a person or company as a subject of an investigation. whistle-blower: Not whistleblower. The phrase whistle-blower can lend credibility to a person and should be used sparingly. When writing stories that develop from a whistle-blower’s allegations, ask whether the person demanded any money from his or her employer and include the response. This will help the reader judge the person’s credibility. Ask that question in a neutral and objective manner, and only to the limited group of people who might actually know the answer (e.g., designated company representatives), so as not to inadvertently disparage the whistleblower in the process of our newsgathering.   Bear in mind that different jurisdictions may use the same phrase to describe an altogether different legal proceeding or aspect thereof. The word writ, for example, should be avoided because in the U.K., it refers to a lawsuit, whereas in the U.S. it’s generally a request for special relief, like a writ of habeas corpus. Similarly, in

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some jurisdictions, there is no meaningful literal English translation for a foreign legal term (e.g., mise en examen in France, prisão preventiva or prisão temporária in Brazil). In those instances, work with the local bureau chief and newsroom lawyer to determine an appropriate translation. See also, bankrupt. level Determine whether level is extraneous or whether another word might be a better choice than this overused and often misused term. Statistics presented as a percentage, rather than as an absolute number, are a rate rather than a level: Euro-Area Jobless Rate Unexpectedly Declines as Recovery Builds. Level works when a word such as lowest used alone would be awkward to read: The ISM’s measure of new orders fell to 59.6 in September, matching the second-highest level since February 2011. Level isn’t needed when it’s clear what the superlative is referring back to: Confidence among Japan’s large manufacturers in the third quarter was the highest since the early stages of the global credit crisis in 2007. A foreign-exchange rate isn’t a level: The pound advanced to $1.2965, the highest rate since Sept. 30. Price is a more precise term when money is involved: Givaudan slipped 0.8 percent to 1.269 francs, the lowest price in more than a month. Libor London interbank offered rate. The rate at which banks in London say they can borrow money from each other for a specified period. Benchmark for money-market rates. Libor is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. London Club Forum for countries seeking relief from debt owed to commercial banks. Each debtor country has a separate “club,” formed at its request and dissolved when an agreement is signed. Provide the explanation, and use the name only when necessary to set up a quote.

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loonie Acceptable on second reference for the Canadian dollar, to provide variety and reduce word echoes. Avoid overusing. loss Losses widen and narrow; they don’t rise or fall: The company’s first-quarter net loss widened to $39 million, or 10 cents a share, from $27 million, or 7 cents, a year earlier. loss-making Awkward. Use unprofitable or money-losing. Macau This city needs China on first reference. Not Macao. Macedonia Use Republic of Macedonia on first reference. Later references can say Macedonia. A size and scope lower in stories should mention that the country formerly was part of Yugoslavia, to prevent confusion with the Macedonia regions of Greece and Bulgaria. mad cow disease Acceptable on first reference. Include the scientific name somewhere in the story: bovine spongiform encephalopathy. mainland China Mainland China is imprecise for differentiating the part of China that excludes Hong Kong. Refer simply to China, and explain that Hong Kong runs on a different economic and political system when it is relevant to the news. management board One of two tiers of company directors in some European countries. Runs the business, while a supervisory board of outside directors makes strategic decisions.

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margins Measure of profitability. Expressed as a percentage of sales or revenue in earnings analysis, and as a dollar amount in oil markets. Margins widen or narrow; they don’t rise or fall. Use the plural margins only when referring to more than one part of a company or more than one type of margin. Analysts track several margins, so be specific in any reference.  gross margin: Shows how much a company earned after deducting costs directly related to the product, including certain wages and manufacturing costs. Expressed as a percentage of sales. Can also be stated as cents per dollar of sales, or the equivalent in local currency. Define in stories. net interest margin: Spread that a bank makes on loans compared with what it pays on borrowings. Expressed as a percentage of assets. operating margin: Shows how much a company earned after paying expenses for production, sales and marketing, research and development, and administration, and after taking accounting charges to reduce the value of its assets. Expressed as percentage of sales. profit margin: Percentage of sales that a company earns after subtracting some or all of its costs and expenses. Gross margin and operating margin are both types of profit margins. Pretax margin subtracts financing costs. Net margin is based on net income. Be specific in identifying which kind of margin.  measurement Use the system of units—metric or U.S./Imperial—in the country that is the main subject of the story. Provide a conversion to the other in parentheses on first reference. Stories from the U.S. or the U.K., for example, might refer to about 13 feet (4 meters). A converted number shouldn’t be more exact than the original, unless more precision is warranted. Stories from countries that use the metric system should put the measurement in kilometers, centimeters, kilograms, liters or Celsius

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first. To calculate weight, distance, dimensions, temperature, volume and speed equivalents, enter UCNV. mergers and acquisitions A general term referring to the consolidation of companies. Merger is appropriate only when the companies are essentially equal partners. If one company will have a dominant role in the merged company, use alternatives such as acquisition, purchase or takeover. Use takeover as a noun; take over as a verb. In some cases, it’s unclear who will own a majority stake in the new company. To determine which company will be dominant, consider the composition of the resulting board, the ownership of the combined company’s shares, the choice of the chief executive and the location of the future headquarters. When the would-be buyer plans to pay in stock, calculate the value of the offer at the previous day’s closing price: Molson Inc. and Adolph Coors Co. agreed to merge in a $3.4 billion share swap. Don’t update the value until after the official close of trading. Calculate the new value with each successive day until the transaction is complete. M&A is acceptable on second reference and in headlines for the phrase mergers and acquisitions. Use sparingly. Other deal terms:  Debt: In referring to the cost of a takeover, use debt by itself only when an acquirer plans to exchange bonds for shares. Write assumed debt when the target company owes the money already and the buyer will take on the debt. Poison pill: Type of takeover defense that typically gives shareholders the right to buy new stock at a discount. Preface with so-called on first reference. Premium: Price exceeding face value. Used most often when referring to the share price of a company targeted for takeover. Be specific when referring to this difference in stories: The stock is trading at a 10 percent premium to the offer price. 

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miles, kilometers Write miles per hour and kilometers per hour in full on first reference. Abbreviate later references to mph or kph. Capitalize to MPH and KPH in headlines. Miles per gallon and kilometers per gallon may also be abbreviated on second reference, to mpg and kpg. Provide a conversion between metric and nonmetric measures, preferably on first reference. Use UCNV to calculate. million, billion Always use figures before the word: 2 million; 100 billion. Not fifty million, six billion. ministry Capitalize when naming a specific ministry: The Foreign Ministry declined to comment. The ministry declined to comment. Capitalize a minister’s title when put before the person’s name: Turkish Transportation Minister Ahmet Arslan; the transportation minister. minus sign Write the word rather than use the symbol, in copy and headlines: The temperature was minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit or Confidence among manufacturers fell to minus 1.3 points. Exception: Use the minus sign in bond ratings: BBB– is S&P Global Ratings’s lowest investment-grade rating. Mitsubishi Use at least two words of the name in headlines on Mitsubishi Corp., a Japanese trading company, or affiliates whose names begin with Mitsubishi: Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi UFJ. Mitsui Use at least two words of the name in headlines on Mitsui & Co., a Japanese trading company, or affiliates whose names begin with Mitsui: Mitsui Chemicals, Mitsui Engineering.

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mobile phone Mobile phone is preferred to cell phone except in direct quotes or historical references to older technology. most favored nation Trade status under which the U.S. applies the lowest possible tariffs to imports from a specific country. Available to most other countries on a reciprocal basis. Muslim Not Moslem for adherents of Islam. mutual funds Closed-end funds have a fixed number of shares outstanding. They usually trade on a stock exchange. Open-end funds sell new shares continuously and buy back shares. Holders can trade only directly with the fund. Exchange-traded funds combine features of closed-end and open-end funds. ETF shares are traded on stock exchanges, and they don’t have a fixed number of shares outstanding. Myanmar The country was formerly known as Burma. The capital Yangon was formerly Rangoon. names Provide full names of companies, organizations and people on first reference. For people’s names, consider personal preferences. William Jefferson Clinton encourages Bill Clinton as standard usage. Rupert Murdoch goes by his middle name rather than his first name, Keith. If a person has a middle initial on his or her business card and it is used in news releases from his company, government or organization, follow that example. For people under age 18, use first name rather than last name for second reference. The exception is when a child is accused of a

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serious crime. Use the last name for a child involved in this adult situation. For non-English names, follow the person’s preference. If that isn’t known, follow local convention for spelling and translation. Note that there are many exceptions to these guidelines. In Asian countries such as China and Korea, family names often come first, rather than last. Examples: Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Second reference: Xi). North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (Second reference: Kim). Many Indonesians use only one name. Example: Suharto. In Japan, the surname follows the given name in English-language usage. Example: Shinzo Abe. (Second reference: Abe). On the Japanese-language wire, surname precedes given name. Example: ). Abe Shinzo ( In general, use the last name (not necessarily the family name) on second reference if the person is from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines or Vietnam. In general, use the first name (though not necessarily the given name) on second reference if the person is from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan or Thailand. Use the whole name on second reference if the person is from Cambodia or Myanmar. In the Muslim world, names vary from country to country, sometimes within a country. Follow the person’s preference and local convention. In Dutch surnames, use lowercase for inserts such as van, de, den, der, van der, van den, in ‘t, op ‘t and ter: Cees de Jager, Cees van der Hoeve. When referring only to the surname, use uppercase for oneword inserts and for the first word of two-word inserts: De Jager,Van der Hoeve. In company names, the first word will often suffice in headlines and on second reference. LVMH is fine for LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA of France because it’s unique to the company. When the first word is a common name, use as many additional words as necessary to distinguish a story’s subject from similarly named companies.

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Always substitute & in place of and, et, und, y and other equivalents in company names. For more details, see company names. Capitalize all brand names of prescription and over-the-counter drugs: Bayer, Contac, Tagamet, Valium. Don’t capitalize generic or chemical names: aspirin, penicillin. Retain exclamation points in product names such as Volkswagen’s Up! electric car and Kraft’s Chips Ahoy! cookies, in headlines and text. Avoid ending a sentence with those names. If necessary, follow the exclamation point with a period: He said his favorite cookie is Chips Ahoy!. narrow Losses, deficits and margins narrow when they get smaller. This is preferable to words such as decline or fall, which could confuse the reader. native American Use American Indian. NATO Acceptable in headlines and on first reference to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Provide the full name on second reference. natural disasters   Earthquakes: Refer to preliminary magnitude in early reports. Large quakes are often reassessed later, leading to a more precise figure that can just be called magnitude. Intensity is a measure of the shaking and damage that a quake causes, not its strength. Hurricanes: Capitalize in front of an officially named hurricane. Capitalize the plural in front of two storm names. The same style applies to tropical storms and typhoons. Hurricanes are so called in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean. Typhoons happen in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and cyclones happen in the southern Pacific and Indian Oceans. Examples: Typhoon Haima, Hurricane Camille, Hurricanes Katrina and

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Rita, Tropical Storm Dineo, Typhoon Longwang, Cyclone Parr, Storm Doris.  negative equity When liabilities exceed assets. net income, net loss The bottom line in earnings, even for countries where pretax income is the more common benchmark for profit and for companies that focus on some other measure. Avoid phrases such as net earnings or net profit. net interest income Interest that banks receive on loans and on investments such as bonds, minus the interest paid on deposits. It shows whether a bank makes more on lending than it pays to borrow. New York The U.S. city stands alone. In headlines, abbreviate New York City as NYC and New York state as N.Y. Also use N.Y. in the shortened form of newspaper names in headlines: N.Y. Post, N.Y. Daily News, N.Y.Times. For the Times, NYT is acceptable in headlines for links or summaries. Don’t use NY without periods. New York Times New York Times Co. may be referred to as Times Co. on second reference. Writing the New York Times, not followed by Co., refers to the company’s flagship newspaper. Headlines may use New York Times both for corporate stories and stories specifically about the paper. The paper may be abbreviated in heads as N.Y. Times, and in heads for links or summaries as NYT. newspaper names Put the in lowercase at the beginning of a name even if the newspaper doesn’t: the Independent, not The Independent.

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noninterest income Banks’ income from sources such as fees on checking accounts and credit cards, service charges, trading, and sales of securities or mutual funds. numbers Generally, write one through nine as words and use numerals for 10 or more: two-year note, four-time winner, seven banks, 10-year note, 27 stores. Write the number as a word when it comes before something known by a number instead of a name: thirty 777s. Use numerals for the following: ●●

●●

●● ●●

When the number comes before a unit of measurement, including dimensions, weights and sizes: 4-foot fence, 7-ounce bottle. When the number comes before millions, billions or trillions: 1 million, 8 billion. When the number comes before a currency: 8 yen, 6 cents. When writing a list of numbers that include values above and below 10. For example: 5, 7, 14, 20; not five, seven, 14, 20.  

Write first through ninth and use numerals for 10th or higher in all references, including trashlines. Exceptions: Use numerals rather than words for Paris’s municipal districts and for names that are part of a sequence: 4th arrondissement; 3rd Congressional District; 6th Fleet; 7th Ward. Use numerals when referring to ratios: a 3-for-2 stock split. Use hyphens in all cases: a 5-to-1 ratio; a ratio of 5-to-1; split the stock 5-for-1. Odds are expressed as a ratio and often don’t require the word to: Bookies put the odds of a Conservative Party victory at 7-3. Percentages shouldn’t be used with the word odds. Instead: Smith said the bill has an 80 percent likelihood of passing. Use a comma in all numbers of 1,000 or more, including indexes: The Micex Index gained 1.2 percent to 1,474.21 at the close in Moscow. When a numeral begins a compound modifier, hyphenate between the numeral and the unit of measure except with currency

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amounts and percentages: 10-year period, 12-day rally, 25-basis-point increase, $14 trillion industry, 23 billion-pound purchase, 28 percent gain. For ranges, repeat the unit in text: $10 million to $15 million. In headlines, repeat the unit or find another way of expressing the amount, such as More Than $10 Million or Up to $15 Million. Don’t write $10-15 Mln to save space. With -fold, use a word and no hyphen through ninefold, numerals and a hyphen starting with 10-fold. Write sevenfold, 15-fold, 37-fold. When a fraction follows a whole number, use numerals rather than words. Half a year; 3 1/2 years. Two-thirds of a cup; 1 2/3 cups. Percentages often are easier to grasp and more precise than fractions: increased by 31 percent, rather than increased by almost a third. For ages, use numerals with people. With objects, use words through nine, numerals for 10 and up. The 5-year-old boy. He was 32 years old. The four-year-old program. The 10-year-old building. Write airline flight numbers in one of these formats: Flight 117, British Airways Flight 117, or BA117. Either the airline name or the airline code may be used, but not both. To indicate a decade, write 1950s or ‘50s. Don’t use an apostrophe between the 0 and s, as in 1950’s, unless indicating a possessive. Headlines and sentences should begin with words rather than numerals. Don’t start with years, numbers preceded by a dollar sign, or other numerals. The only exception is a name, such as 3M Co. When noting a historic level—a stock price fell to a three-year low or an economic statistic was the highest in 18 months—don’t use a number that is rounded up. These thresholds are treated like birthdays. You aren’t 30 until you reach that exact date. Being 29 years and 10 months doesn’t count. Almost may be used in certain cases, especially for larger numbers, but do so sparingly. It’s acceptable to say General Motors’ shares are at the lowest in almost 14 years when it has been 13 years and 11 months. Don’t round to say they hit a 14-year low until it is accurate to the day. For smaller numbers, use discretion with almost. It may not make sense to say a number was the highest in almost 14 months when it

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has been 13 months and 17 days. It’s better to round down to 13 months or write in more than 13 months. For additional style guidelines related to numbers, see fractions; percentages; rounding; and records. Nuremberg Not Nuernberg or Nurnberg. Needs Germany on first reference. Obamacare Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is acceptable on first reference and in headlines. The full name of the law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Subsequent references may say the U.S. health-care overhaul, the Obama health-care law or Obama’s health-care law. The term Obamacare was coined by opponents as a derogatory nickname, but was later was embraced by the president himself and the law’s supporters. obscenity, profanity, vulgarity Acceptable only in quotations, when the comment was made in a newsworthy context and is compelling. Use sparingly. An executive editor must sign off on the decision. The words must also help drive a story. Don’t use obscenities, profanities or vulgarities gratuitously or for color. Write with hyphens substituting for letters after the first letter of the term: “Have you ever tried to get cow s— out of a Prada purse?” she said. “It’s not so f—ing simple.” observers Lacks precision, as in observers said. Identify people in detail. occupancy rate Percentage of available hotel rooms filled in a specified period. offered rate Not offer rate.

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oil Write crude oil, or crude, on first reference when citing the raw material in its unrefined form. Oil is used as a catch-all word for more than a dozen products of crude oil, ranging from very light, gaseous chemicals to heavy, sludge-like tar. The range encompasses light ends such as naphtha and gasoline, middle distillates such as heating oil, diesel and aviation jet fuel, and heavy ends such as residual fuel oil and bitumen. Be specific about the type of oil whenever possible: Naphtha, a crude oil product used as an ingredient in the manufacturing of plastics, or fuel oil, a residual product of oil refining used to power ships. The biggest futures markets for crude are the NewYork Mercantile Exchange, where West Texas Intermediate is traded, and the ICE Futures Europe exchange, the largest market for Brent. Oil field, not oilfield. Oil patch, not oilpatch. OK Acceptable only in quotations. Unacceptable as a synonym for approve. Don’t spell as okay. Olympics   ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Capitalization and spelling for Olympics expressions: the Olympics the Olympic Games the games (not the Games) the Winter Olympics the 2014 Olympics the 2016 Summer Olympics the Rio Olympics the Rio Olympic Games the Sochi Winter Games the 2014 Sochi Olympics the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

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the 2022 Beijing Olympics an Olympic athlete the 2014 Olympic champion Olympic gold Olympic medal 

on offer Write for sale. one-time As in one-time charges, one-time gains. Use this rather than words such as one-off, extraordinary, nonrecurring or exceptional. Don’t assume that a charge or gain is one-time just because a company presents the item that way. In corporate earnings, a charge is something that reduces profit. It’s preferable to use a specific term, such as cost, expense, writedown, investment loss, severance pay, loss from an asset sale. If the company uses only the word charge, use it in initial headlines and stories while pressing for details. In the U.K., the phrases exceptional item and extraordinary item describe an after-tax gain or charge. In parts of Asia, the definition is more flexible. Use gain or charge if a more specific description isn’t available, and say whether the amount is before taxes. online Use online, one word, for both the adjective and the adverb. OPEC Acceptable in headlines and on first reference to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Use the full name on second reference. Stories also should identify OPEC’s 14 member nations when appropriate: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

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operating profit, income, loss Operating profit, operating income and operating loss are used differently in different industries and by different companies. Define them each time: Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, rose 66 percent to 32.6 billion yen. options Contracts granting their buyers the right—but not the obligation— to buy or sell a security, a commodity or an index’s cash value at a set price. There are two basic types: Call options, conveying the right to buy, and put options, representing the right to sell. American-style options can be exercised at any time before they expire; European-style options can be exercised only at the time of expiration. Explain in stories. The contracts are said to be in the money when the underlying asset has a price more than the strike price of a call option and less than that of a put option. The contracts are called out of the money when the underlying asset price is less than the call’s strike and more than that of a put option. ordinary share Use common share. outlook A company can increase or reduce its earnings forecast. That means its outlook improved or worsened. The company didn’t increase or reduce its outlook. outsourcing Practice of shifting work to contractors, often in other countries, from employees. over Not to be used as a synonym for during or more than. oversubscribed Describes stock or bond sale in which investors offer to buy more securities than the total amount available.

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overweight, underweight   Overweight: Describes a market segment, such as an industry group or a country, that accounts for a larger percentage of a portfolio than it does of a benchmark index. Underweight: Describes a market segment that accounts for a smaller percentage of a portfolio than it does of a benchmark index.  Palestine Palestine signifies different territory in different contexts. The land historically belonged to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Palestine represented the area west of the Jordan River that was a British mandate from the 1920s until the creation of modern Israel in 1948. Today, Palestine includes parts of Israel and Jordan. Use Palestine in the context of geography, not as a substitute for the Palestinian Authority, Palestine Liberation Organization or any other political body. Paris Club Forum for countries seeking relief from debts owed to other countries. There are 19 members, whose representatives meet informally in Paris to provide coordinated assistance. Provide the explanation and use the name only when necessary to set up a quote. passthrough Type of mortgage-backed security entitling its owner to receive principal and interest payments on home mortgages. The homeowners’ money passes through a government agency or investment bank before reaching investors. Define in stories. per Use a instead of per when referring to amounts; 50 cents a share, 50 planes a year, $50 a barrel. Exceptions: Earnings per share, per-share earnings, miles per hour, pence per euro.

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percent Spell the word percent in stories. Use the % symbol in story headlines, TOP headlines and tables. percentages Percent isn’t the same as percentage point. For example, the Federal Reserve may raise or lower its target rate for overnight bank loans by 0.25 percentage point, not 0.25 percent. Express percentages as numerals. For numbers less than 1, include the 0 before the decimal point: 0.9 percent, not .9 percent. The 0 isn’t needed after the decimal for a whole number: 5 percent, not 5.0 percent. Round percentages of less than 10 to one decimal place unless the rounded figure is a whole number: 9.7 percent, not 9.68 percent. For percentages of 10 or more, round to whole numbers: 15 percent, not 15.3 percent. Take amounts to more decimal places when the added precision is necessary. It’s better to write Fund A rose 18.4 percent, while Fund B rose 17.6 percent than to write that both funds gained 18 percent. For percentages of about 100 or more, a general comparison is usually better than providing specific figures: first-quarter earnings more than doubled, rather than first-quarter earnings rose 109 percent. Don’t hyphenate percentages in compound modifiers: 14 percent gain, not 14-percent gain. When calculating percentages, use the most complete figures available, not rounded numbers. Express percentage points as numerals: 4 percentage points; a 2-percentage-point increase; 3 1/2 percentage points; 19 percentage points. Percentages shouldn’t be used with the word odds. Instead: Smith said the bill has an 80 percent likelihood of passing. Odds are expressed as a ratio: Bookies put the odds of a Conservative Party victory at 7-3. period Period may be used on second reference for a time span in earnings or sales stories. The first reference must specify quarter, half, week or month.

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Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf is surrounded by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran. If a quotation refers to it as the Arabian Gulf, add a line of explanation that some countries use that name for the same body of water. pleaded Not pled. Past tense of plead. poll, survey Use poll to describe results of scientific sampling with a quantifiable margin of error. Otherwise, survey is preferable. We survey analysts and economists. Pollster is the individual who personally asks the questions on a public-opinion poll. The group taking the poll is a polling company or polling organization. Rather than describing a poll taker as Republican or Democratic, write who polls for Republicans or that conducts polls for Democrats. pope Capitalize only when placed before a name: Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, the pope. The pope also may be referred to as the pontiff, always lowercase. The title His Holiness should be restricted to direct quotations. Numerals are appended only if later popes adopt the same name. Thus it’s Pope Francis, not Pope Francis I. possessives   Singular nouns. Add ‘s, even when the word ends in a letter that sounds like s or sh: Xilinix’s earnings, Onex’s IPO. Singular nouns that end in s. Add ‘s: the witness’s response, the boss’s decision. Singular names that end in s. Add ‘s, whether the final s is pronounced or not: Sears’s sales, American Express’s customers, Arkansas’s budget, Rodriguez’s award. Exceptions where only the

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apostrophe is used: Classical names such as Sophocles’ Antigone or Artemis’ bow. Names with more than one syllable when the last syllable starts and ends with s or an s sound and the final syllable is unaccented: Moses’ staff, Massachusetts’ governor, Texas’ taxes, Kansas’ sunflowers. Nouns that take the same form whether singular or plural. Add ‘s: one moose’s tracks, three moose’s tracks. Plural nouns that don’t end in s. Add ‘s: the women’s achievements, the men’s decisions. Plural nouns that end in s. Add only an apostrophe, including when the plural noun represents a singular entity: the accountants’ review, the CEOs’ compensation. Nouns plural in form but singular in meaning, including names. Add an apostrophe: the measles’ effects, General Motors’ earnings. Compound phrases. Add the punctuation after the word nearest to the object that is possessed: attorneys general’s research, inspector general’s request. Add the punctuation only after the last word if the possession is joint: Bush and Blair’s agreement. Add punctuation after both words in the phrase if the objects are individually owned: Germany’s and France’s budgets. Don’t add an apostrophe after a word that ends in s that functions primarily as a descriptive element: a reporters manual, the dockworkers lockout. Common expressions that are possessive in form. Add only an apostrophe when the expression ends with s or an s sound and is followed by a word that begins with s: for goodness’ sake, for appearance’ sake. Otherwise, use ‘s. Double possessives. A double possessive occurs when a possessive follows of. Use ‘s for the possessive when the word following of is an animate object and the word preceding of involves only part of the animate object’s possession: A friend of Jim’s, not a friend of Jim. (Animate object and only one friend is involved.) A friend of the college, not a friend of the college’s. (Inanimate object.) The friends of George Washington, not the friends of George Washington’s. (All of the friends are involved.) 

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preferred   Write preferred shares rather than preference shares or preferential shares. In earnings stories, use full amounts before payment of dividends on preferred stock. Use per-share amounts after the preferred dividends, and make clear that they reflect the dividend payments. prepositions   In headlines, capitalize prepositions of four or more letters: About, Above, After, Among, Behind, Between, From, Into, Over, Through, Toward, Under, Until, Upon,With,Without. Shorter prepositions usually are lowercase: at, but, by, for, in, of, off, to, up. Capitalize the short ones when they are part of an expression: Fed Up, Hang On, Check Off. Use prepositions such as below, under, above and over to denote a physical relationship. Don’t use them as substitutes for less than or more than. price   Express the price of a commodity as a singular rather than plural. Instead of Prices plunged 5.3 percent, write The price plunged 5.3 percent or Corn plunged 5.3 percent. price quotes   Provide the time when quoting prices for stocks, bonds, futures and currencies, or indicate that the price was at the close. Include the location that correlates with the time. Electronic trading makes it imprecise to specify a stock exchange. Examples: Silvercorp fell 16 percent to C$6.52 at 11:47 a.m. in Toronto, the biggest decline since Nov. 19, 2008. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation’s largest lender by market value, sank 4.1 percent to $145.45 in Sydney, its lowest closing price in more than two years. The FTSE 100 fell 1.6 percent to 7,297.43 at the close in London as all but eight companies retreated. The Bovespa declined 0.5 percent to 67,537.62 at 12:15 p.m. in Sao Paulo. Forty-one stocks in the index dropped, while 18 rose.

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Wheat futures for December delivery fell 0.3 percent to settle at $4.3625 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. The S&P GSCI Index retreated 2.5 percent at 12:42 p.m. in New York. Arabica coffee for December delivery rose 1.8 percent to $1.3585 a pound on ICE Futures in New York. The U.K. currency strengthened 0.3 percent to $1.2937 at 4:43 p.m. in London, after earlier falling to $1.2831, the weakest level since July 13. The pound appreciated 1.2 percent to 84.30 pence per euro, after slipping 0.4 percent yesterday. U.K. 10-year bond yields gained two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 1.04 percent at 9 a.m. in London, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. The 1.50 percent bond, due July 2026, rose 0.61, or 6.10 pounds per 1,000-pound ($1,288) face amount, to 104.22. price target  Projected price level of a security. Try to add the time frame, which is usually 12 months: Example: The analyst raised the stock’s 12-month price target to 93 pesos from 87 pesos. price-earnings ratio  Share price divided by earnings per share. The amount that an investor has to pay for every currency unit, such as a dollar or a euro, of earnings.  printing money   Avoid the expression printing money to describe the Fed’s quantitative easing or similar monetary policies at other central banks. Printing money is pejorative to some readers, implying recklessness related to countries increasing their money supply and stoking runaway inflation. Explain that the bank is expanding the money supply by buying bonds or other securities, thereby reducing interest rates, to stimulate the economy. Exercise judgment before including the phrase in a direct quotation. If an official says something newsworthy such as “No more printing money,” it’s acceptable to use with explanation of what’s meant.

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private equity   Private equity firms, also known as leveraged buyout or LBO firms, pool money from investors such as endowments, pensions and sovereign wealth funds in order to buy companies. The firms typically use a combination of equity and debt (leverage) to finance the transactions, and earn profits by selling the companies, or taking them public, several years later. Don’t hyphenate as modifier. Private equity firm, not privateequity firm. private placement   Securities sale to a relatively small number of investors, typically institutions. In the U.S., companies that use private placements don’t have to register the securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission before selling. privately held   In many countries, privately held means that the company is owned by investors rather than owned by the state. When referring to companies whose shares aren’t traded, write closely held, whether the shares are held by one person or a few. privatization   Use the sale of state-owned companies or an equivalent phrase rather than this term. pro forma   Financial statements prepared on a what-if basis, most commonly in connection with an acquisition. Also used to show earnings with nonrecurring expenses stripped out. Explain what is being measured. profit   For earnings, use the plural profits only when referring to more than one company or more than one period. profit-taking   Avoid citing profit-taking as the reason for a market’s decline because it’s usually impossible to know whether investors are making a profit or

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taking a loss. Explain the reasons why people are inclined to sell, rather than writing phrases such as profit-taking, cashing in or locking in profits. Prudential   Prudential Financial Inc. is a U.S.-based insurance company. Prudential Plc is a U.K.-based insurer whose shares trade in U.S. markets. Include enough of the company name in headlines to avoid confusion. put options   Contracts that provide the right—but not the obligation—to sell a security, currency or commodity at a set price within a set period. This can also be used to bet on the direction of an index, such as for stocks or interest rates. When using the term, define immediately after the first reference. Qaddafi, Moammar   Late longtime leader of Libya. quiet period   Companies seeking to sell securities to U.S. investors sometimes cite a quiet period imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as their reason for declining to comment on a news event. The SEC’s restrictions on what can be discussed are less restrictive than what many companies and their lawyers maintain. quotation marks Quote marks should be used around the names of compositions, including books, movies, operas, plays, poems, albums, songs, TV shows, lectures, speeches and works of art, such as “Hamilton” or “Moonlight.” They shouldn’t be used for smartphone app names, computer or video game titles or software names. Nor should they be used for the official name of an operation, program or product, for which the name is generally capitalized. Financial terms, bond ratings and analyst stock ratings also don’t require quotes. Quote marks should be used when citing someone’s direct words. In rare instances, quote marks may be used around a specific term to

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convey that the speaker used it ironically: The offer was “too generous” to accept, she said. Take care that other uses of partial quotes don’t serve to imply we’re skeptical about what the speaker said. When the goal is to alert readers to a term that may be unfamiliar, use conversational wording, such as also known as or nicknamed, rather than quote marks. Never use quote marks together with socalled on one term. So-called indicates that a term is popularly used but unofficial and should be used sparingly. quotations A direct quotation must convey exactly what the person said. Don’t tinker with the words within quotation marks, unless to remove throat-clearing or fix minor grammatical mistakes. All quotations need named attributions. They should come from people involved in the action, or with true insight on the subject. Make sure a quote adds true value to the story. It’s acceptable to skip parts of a quote and start with the insightful part as long as the meaning isn’t distorted. That includes omitting throat-clearing introductions such as I think, As you know, Indeed. Trim hang-on expressions at the end of a quotation that don’t add substance.  Don’t: ●●

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Use an ellipsis (. . .) to connect one part of a sentence to another or link complete sentences. Prefer partial quotes or paraphrase instead. Insert explanatory material in parentheses or brackets within quotes. Put the explanation before or after the quote. Consider paraphrasing if it’s difficult to understand otherwise. Do:

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Introduce the speaker at the first convenient break, usually at the end of the first sentence. Make clear when the person was speaking, if it wasn’t today. Provide any context necessary to show the circumstances of older comments.

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Place commas and periods before closing quotations marks, rather than afterward. Only colons and semicolons sometimes go after closing quote marks. When translating quotes, take care to stay true to the person’s meaning and provide an accurate, fluent translation of what was said. 

range-bound Write about what the range is and how long it has lasted instead of using this market jargon. ranges Reserve use of range and ranging from x to y for groups whose individual items span a continuum. Prices, amounts or other numbers can often be expressed as a range: a range of $3.25 to $3.80 a share; ranging from 70 degrees to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Colors progress across a range: shades ranging from pale blue to deep sapphire. Or a geographic spread: Its territory ranges from Vancouver to San Diego. A group of distinct but related entities that don’t fall on a continuum aren’t a range. Including may describe the relationship better. If the goal is to emphasize the differences within a group, try as diverse as or as varied as. rate On first reference, indicate what type of rate: interest rate, swap rate, exchange rate, absorption rate, inflation rate, occupancy rate. Don’t assume the reader knows which rate is meant by the context. realized Describes gains or losses on investment sales, a preferable way to refer to them. Differs from unrealized gains or losses, which are based on changes in the value of investments.

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recession Define this term precisely. In most countries, it is two consecutive quarters of falling gross domestic product. Consult the national statistical agency. In the U.S., economists defer to the judgment of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. record, records When noting a historic level, such as a stock price falling to a threeyear low, don’t round up the number. These thresholds are like birthdays. You don’t reach them until you get all the way there. Almost may be used in certain cases, especially for larger numbers. It’s acceptable to say that General Motors shares are at the lowest in almost 14 months when it has been 13 years and 11 months. Don’t round to say a 14-year low until it is accurate to the day. For smaller numbers, use discretion with almost. It may not make sense to say in almost 14 months when it has been 13 months and 17 days. It’s better to round down to 13 months or write more than 13 months. Used as a modifier, all-time high and all-time low are better said as record. Example: The Dow rose to a record, rather than The Dow rose to an all-time high. The shares fell to a record low, rather than The shares fell to an all-time low. regions Only capitalize regions that are official designations or well-known worldwide: Southeast Asia, Southern California, U.S. Northeast, England’s Lake District, New York’s Upper East Side. An area or region such as central Bolivia or southeast England should be lower case.  Eastern Europe: The term Eastern Europe, with both words capitalized, refers to the former East bloc political alliance. For a geographic reference, use eastern Europe.

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eastern Germany, western Germany: Use only as a geographic reference for the eastern or western part of the current Germany. East Germany and West Germany ceased to exist as of Oct. 3, 1990. EMEA: Acceptable in headlines and on second reference for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Far East: Not a synonym for Asia. Name specific countries. West: The West is a dated term that describes a certain set of values that have underpinned political institutions in the U.S. and its noncommunist allies in Europe and the Western Hemisphere since World War II. Try to be more specific. Name individual countries or alliances, such as NATO. Use western Europe to indicate the western side of the continent.  reportedly Always say who reported the news. representative Capitalize before the name of a member of the U.S. House: Representative Nancy Pelosi. Don’t abbreviate as Rep. retail terms   factors: In the retail industry, factors buy unpaid bills, or receivables, from companies such as garment makers and assume the risk of collection. futures orders: Clothing- and shoe-industry term for orders that retailers place as much as six months in advance. Explain in stories. same-store sales: Sales at stores open for at least a year. A performance benchmark for retailers, supermarkets, restaurants and hotels because the figure excludes actions such as openings, closings and expansions that can affect total sales. Healthmaintenance organizations report same-store membership and hospitals report same-store admissions, based on plans and

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facilities owned for more than one year, respectively. Define in stories.  retained earnings The cumulative profits retained by a company, which are most often reduced by the payment of dividends. revenue, sales Not revenues or turnover. revpar May be used on second reference for revenue per available room, a hotel industry measurement. rights offer, offering When a company distributes securities that give stockholders the right to buy additional shares, it’s a rights offering, not rights issue. Rights offer is acceptable in headlines. ring fence Jargon. Better to be specific: contain, control, limit, check. Use ring fence (noun) and ring-fence (verb, adjective) only in a compelling quote. roadshow Series of meetings that companies and investment bankers hold with investors to promote securities sales. Spell as one word, not two. rounding When a number precedes the word million, billion or trillion, round to two decimal places when the number is less than 10: 9.23 million, 6.14 billion. Round to one decimal place if the number is 10 or higher: 324.8 million, 33.7 trillion. Round percentages of less than 10 to one decimal place: 9.7 percent, not 9.68 percent. For percentages of 10 or more, use whole numbers unless more precision is warranted: 15 percent, not 15.3 percent. Round economic statistics to one decimal place. In all cases, use additional decimal places when necessary to show contrast. Write

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2.29 percent compared with 2.34 percent, rather than 2.3 percent compared with 2.3 percent, for example. Write Fund A rose 18.4 percent while Fund B rose 17.6 percent, rather than saying both funds gained 18 percent. Round merger valuations, currency translations and other estimated numbers of less than 1 billion to the nearest million (325 million) and amounts of 1 billion or more to one decimal place (1.7 billion). Omit zeroes after decimal points. A converted number shouldn’t be more exact than the original, unless more precision is warranted. Usually, 30 centimeters should be rounded to 12 inches, not 11.8; 6 meters is 20 feet, not 19.7. Round values stated in cents or similar currency units to whole numbers, including earnings per share: 5 cents, not 4.8 cents. Round stock-trading statistics to reflect the minimum size for a typical trade in the local market. For example, if daily trading averaged 45,623 shares during the past three months and the minimum is 100 shares, use 45,600. Don’t round a number differently in the headline than in the text. The numbers should match. See record, records. rumor Avoid writing about rumors. Instead, use them as reporting leads to pin down the facts. Including unsubstantiated rumor or hearsay in a story bestows credibility that is often undeserved and can mislead our audience. If markets move on rumors, then it’s acceptable to report on the market movements, explaining that traders or investors are making speculative bets based on unverified information. Always show our efforts to verify the information ourselves. said Said is neutral. Substitutes such as conceded, noted, announced, claimed, argued, explained, exclaimed, remarked, observed, added, opined, defended and warned can imply bias.

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Admitted may be used in legal stories, when someone is officially admitting wrongdoing. Some verbs convey attribution and make the use of said unnecessary, including agreed and named. Put said before a person’s name only when the title or description that follows is lengthy: “It’s too soon,” John Smith said. “It’s too soon,” said John Smith, a lawyer representing most of the victims. Identify news sources as precisely as possible. This often will mean specifying that a person communicated through a statement, speech or testimony, as opposed to an interview with a reporter. San Francisco The U.S. city stands alone. When referring to the San Francisco Bay area, keep area lowercase. Saudi Saudi is acceptable as an adjective meaning Saudi Arabian and as a noun for residents of Saudi Arabia. Not acceptable as a shortened form of the country name. Saudi Binladin Group Use this spelling for Saudi Binladin Group, a construction company based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. scheme Not acceptable to mean plan or proposal, as the word may imply illegal or unethical activity in American English. seasons Winter, spring, summer, fall and autumn come at different times in the northern and southern hemispheres. Provide a time reference rather than the season if the location of the action is unclear: The transaction will be completed by December or by the fourth quarter, rather than completed in the fall. secure In lending, to secure means the borrower has guaranteed payment by putting up assets or other collateral. Turkey Secures $8.5 Billion Loan

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Agreement With U.S. could suggest that Turkey is backing the loan with a promise to pay. More precise: Turkey Gets $8.5 Billion U.S. Loan for War Costs. seem Report what is said and done, not what seems, which can be subjective. What seems to one person may not seem to another. Self-Defense Forces Use this name for Japan’s military only on second reference or later. Provide a description on first reference. Don’t use the abbreviation SDF. semicolons Use this punctuation in a headline only when it includes more than one subject. When one subject takes two verbs, use a comma. Widgets Names Johnson Chairman; Stock Falls (In first part of the headline, Widgets is the subject. In the second part, the stock is the new subject.) Widgets Names Johnson Chairman, Plans $100 Million Charge (The company is taking both actions.) senator Capitalize before a name: Senator John McCain. Don’t abbreviate as Sen. Sept. 11 The date can usually be used without the year when a story mentions the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Specify 2001 if the context doesn’t make it clear. Preferable to 9/11. In a direct quote, if a person says, “Nine-eleven,” write it as 9/11. If the person says, “September 11,” write it as Sept. 11. short sale, short seller Sale of stock borrowed from shareholders. People who sell short hope to profit by repurchasing the securities later at a lower price and returning them to the holder. Define in all uses.

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Use two words and no hyphen: short sale, short seller and short selling. As adjectives, hyphenate: short-sale reporting, short-seller reports, short-selling strategy. short squeeze Situation in which a number of short sellers buy back the shares they borrowed and sold because the price has risen, rather than fallen. Define in all uses. since Use only in time references: Widget sales have fallen since the start of the year. Use because when describing cause and effect: Widget sales have fallen because of the recall. size and scope The size and scope should help define the subject of the story— whether a company, a person, an organization or a country—and help explain what’s at stake and why it matters. Define the universe used in the size and scope. Is it the biggest company in Japan by sales? The third-largest country in a region? The largest widget maker? The highest-paid chief executive officer? Intel Corp., the world’s largest semiconductor maker; Bill Gates, the world’s richest person; Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Sales are the usual benchmark for ranking a company’s size. Assets are used to measure banks and other financial firms. Country size is often based on gross domestic product. Explain rankings based on other measures, such as population, market value, number of stores, assets or best-performing hedge fund. The explanation should be in the first few paragraphs of the story. Make sure any reference fits the story. Identifying Johnson & Johnson as the maker of Band-Aids may not make sense in a story about the company’s drug business or medical devices. Size and scope is often situated immediately after the subject: Acme Co., the second-largest widget maker, agreed to buy XYZ Inc. Separating the subject and its description can be confusing: Acme Co.

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agreed to buy XYZ Inc., sending shares of the second-largest widget maker higher. Whose stock is moving—Acme’s, XYZ’s or a third, unnamed company that makes widgets? Use an abbreviation and number when referring to a ranking, rather than full words: No. 1, not Number One. Rankings of No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 alert the reader that the subject is important in its field. When naming one of the top three, the other two are usually cited as well. The No. nomenclature and superlatives such as largest, smallest or biggest should be used only when the measure is indisputable. Slim Carlos Slim uses only one surname. Don’t use Carlos Slim Helu on first reference. For subsequent references, Slim. His son uses two family names. He is Carlos Slim Domit on first reference and Slim Domit on later references. smartphone The term for advanced mobile phones is spelled as one word, smartphone. smartwatch Write smartwatch, one word, for wristwatches that can make calls, connect to the Web and take photos. Sony Corp. has the trademarked name SmartWatch for its device. so-called Terms that are formal names or widely understood usually don’t need to be put inside quotation marks or be preceded by so-called. So-called indicates that a term is popularly used but unofficial, sometimes almost slang. It should be used sparingly. So-called doesn’t take the place of explaining jargon or an unfamiliar term. It often signals the need for such explanation. Other times, so-called is extraneous and should be eliminated. Don’t use so-called together with quotation marks around the term.

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Words & Terms

Soviet Union Fifteen former Soviet republics are now independent states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. speaker Capitalize this congressional title only when it appears as a formal title before a person’s name: Speaker Paul Ryan. Otherwise, use lowercase. spinoff Use spinoff as a noun, spin off as a verb. Use only when a public company is giving stock in a unit to shareholders. If the company plans to sell the stock, use sale. Describe the specific type of event. Spinout isn’t acceptable as a financial term. spokesman, spokeswoman Use spokesman or spokeswoman, not spokesperson. Write spokesmen for groups that are all-male or both genders, and spokeswomen when referring to all females, not spokespeople. sports metaphors A worldwide audience isn’t likely to understand sporting terms used to describe events. References to scoring a touchdown would make sense only to people familiar with American football. Similarly, few people in the U.S. would know the meaning of phrases such as hit for six, which comes from cricket. spread When referring to debt, spread is the extra yield that investors demand to own a bond rather than Treasuries or another benchmark bond. Avoid using spread on first reference, as in The spread between U.S. Treasury notes and European government bonds widened. Better: The difference in yield between U.S. Treasury notes and European government bonds widened.

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If the gap in the yield is widening, investors perceive more risk. If the spread is narrowing, holders consider the bond to be less risky. standstill agreement Agreement in which a potential acquirer refrains from increasing its stake in a target company for a specified period. Define. startup Use startup as a noun or adjective; start up as a verb. state names For the benefit of global readers, write full names of U.S. states in all references: California, not Calif. or CA. The abbreviations N.Y. and N.J. may be used for New York and New Jersey in headlines. Don’t use NY, NJ or other postal codes. For the District of Columbia, D.C., is acceptable only when it’s necessary to write Washington, D.C., to distinguish the U.S. capital from the state of Washington. To form the possessive, these state names take only an apostrophe: Massachusetts’ governor,Texas’ taxes, Kansas’ sunflowers. All others take an apostrophe and s: Arkansas’s population, Illinois’s prairies, Florida’s beaches, Oregon’s blueberries. state-owned Reserved for companies owned entirely by a government. If a state company has publicly traded shares, use state-controlled. steelmaker Not steel maker. stock split Begin with the number of shares an investor will have after the split. Use numbers rather than words to describe the ratios, and always tie the figures together by using hyphens: Widgets proposed a 3-for-2 stock split.Widgets said it will split its stock 3-for-2. stockbroker Not stock broker.

308

Words & Terms

stockholder Not stock holder. strike price The price at which an option can be exercised. subsidiary Separately incorporated business within a parent company. Acceptable alternative to unit, which is preferable. sulfur Not sulphur. Sumitomo Use at least two words of the name in headlines on Sumitomo Corp., a Japanese trading company, or affiliates whose names begin with Sumitomo: Sumitomo Chemical, Sumitomo Heavy. Superfund Capitalize in all references to the U.S. program for cleaning up hazardous waste sites. supervisory board One of two tiers of company directors in some European countries. It consists of outside directors and makes strategic decisions. support, resistance   Support: Analysts use this jargon to identify a price or value that a security, commodity or index probably will struggle to fall below, based on past performance. Describe the performance instead. Resistance: A price or value that a security, commodity or index probably will struggle to exceed, based on past performance.  Swap Specify whether a swap is credit-default, currency or some other type. Weave a definition of the swap into the narrative.

Words & Terms

309

The swap rate is what borrowers pay to exchange their fixed-rate interest payments for floating ones. The gap between that and a benchmark bond yield is the swap spread. When the swap spread widens, it becomes more expensive for borrowers to pay a fixed rate of interest and get a floating rate in return. Investors and banks monitor the spread because it’s used as a guideline to price corporate debt. Explain in stories. swing Use this term only when a company has a profit for the first time in a year (after four quarterly losses or two half-year losses, depending on how it reports). Or use for the first loss after a year of profits. Don’t use swing when the company has bounced between profits and losses during the past year. Don’t use it for comparison only with the immediately preceding period. syndicated loan A loan provided by a group of lenders to a single borrower. A syndicate manager heads the group. Say a group of investment banks led by, and name the firm. tables Countries and companies belong in alphabetical order in tables unless there is a specific reason to arrange them differently, such as a ranking in order of sales, market value or other figure. To begin a list of European Union member states with a country other than Austria, for example, the reporter and/or editor would have to decide which member is most important, or biggest or most relevant. Taliban Muslim fundamentalist group that took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and sheltered Osama bin Laden. In Arabic, it means students or scholars. Singular form is talib. tax-loss carry-forward Tax benefit allowing companies to apply losses incurred in one fiscal period against income generated in later periods. Describe as a tax benefit.

310

Words & Terms

Tea Party Capitalize Tea Party and its followers, Tea Partyers. Not Partiers. tech, biotech Technology and biotechnology may be shortened to tech and biotech in headlines. Tech isn’t a substitute for technical. Write the full word in phrases such as technical support or technical workers. technical analysis Market analysis that relies on identifying historical price patterns. Better to write, for example: Some traders who rely on chart patterns expect the rally to end at about 21,100 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. telecom Telecommunications may be shorted to telecom in headlines. Avoid telecoms, telco and telcos. television ratings Two measures from Nielsen apply to U.S. television programs and networks: rating and share. Each rating point equals 1 percent of the U.S. households with TVs. A share point is the percentage of sets that were actually turned on. A program at 15/40 has a 15 rating and a 40 share. temperatures Use the scale—Celsius or Fahrenheit—of the country where the main action of the story occurs. Provide a conversion in parentheses on first reference: 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius). To calculate equivalents, enter UCNV. tender, tender offer Tender is the action taken by a company’s shareholders in response to a tender offer. A tender offer is made by a would-be purchaser in connection with an acquisition.

Words & Terms

311

terrorism, terrorist Use terrorism to describe violent actions that are intended to intimidate or demoralize, especially for political reasons, and terrorist to describe someone associated with carrying out the actions. When evidence isn’t readily available and an authority asserts that an event was caused by terrorists or that bombs were dropped on terrorist camps, qualify the assertion with alleged or suspected. When terrorists’ religion is given as a reason or motivation, it is acceptable to include that in the story. the Omit at the beginning of company names: Limited Inc., not The Limited Inc. For newspaper names, make it lowercase: the New York Times, not The New York Times. Tibor Tokyo interbank offered rate. The rate at which banks in Tokyo are willing to lend money to each other for a specified period. Benchmark for money-market rates. Tibor is acceptable in headlines and on second reference. time of day Separate the hour and minute with a colon, not a period, and use a.m. or p.m., not 24-hour time: 4:30 p.m., not 4.30 p.m., and not 16:30. Omit 00 when making exact references to an hour: 4 p.m., not 4:00 p.m. Avoid confusing readers with this morning, this afternoon, this evening. Overnight, used to describe foreign-exchange trading in another time zone, is most confusing of all. Remember that it’s always some other time somewhere else. When a story refers to a future event, it’s essential to give the time, date and location. time zones Terms such as Eastern Daylight Time, or abbreviations such as EDT, aren’t familiar to a worldwide audience. Better to use a major city or

312

Words & Terms

region: 5 p.m. Zurich time, midnight U.S.West Coast time, or 8:30 a.m. local time. Times London isn’t part of the name of the newspaper there called The Times. To differentiate between that Times and similarly named publications, write the London-based Times. titles Courtesy titles such as Mr., Mrs., Miss and Ms. are unnecessary. True titles belong to elected officials and to corporate and military officers. Capitalize titles when they come directly before a name. Lowercase them in other cases, such as when used as a description: Executive Vice President John Smith. John Smith, executive vice president. Do the same when referring to titles of former officers: former Chairman Mary Jones. Avoid abbreviations for titles because they may be unfamiliar to a global audience. Some examples: Governor Chris Christie, not Gov. Chris Christie. Senator Dianne Feinstein, not Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Also: Representative Nancy Pelosi, General Joseph Dunford, former Rear Admiral John Kirby. Rather than use Dr. as a title, describe what kind of medicine the doctor practices or the field of a Ph.D. holder. Rather than use Reverend or other clerical titles, give specifics about the denomination or congregation represented. Place long titles after the name to avoid awkward construction. Don’t use titles of nobility or honorifics, such as Lord, Lady, U or Tan, on first reference. Use the name in standard form: Margaret Thatcher or Paul McCartney. If the person prefers to be known by the title or is widely known by it, use it in a later reference with an explanation of where the title comes from or what it means. For example: on first reference, Margaret Thatcher or former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. On second reference: Thatcher, who was known as Lady Thatcher after being elevated to the House of Lords in 1992. Or, after 1992, when she became a baroness.

Words & Terms

313

John Browne, former BP chief executive officer. On second reference: Browne, known as Lord Browne since being appointed a member of Parliament’s upper chamber in 1997. Frederick Curzon, known as Earl Howe since becoming the 13th holder of the hereditary title in 1999. Or Curzon, who sits in the House of Lords as Earl Howe. When someone is so widely known by a titled name that most people wouldn’t recognize the common name, try to fit both in the headline. For example, many people aren’t aware that the Duke of Westminster’s common name is Gerald Grosvenor. The best solution is to trim as many details as possible from the headline so that both names can be used. If there is no way to make them fit, use only the titled name. Royal titles are acceptable, such as Queen Elizabeth II, Emperor Akihito, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah. ton, metric ton, tonne Ton refers to U.S. short tons, or 2,000 pounds. Metric, or long tons, are 1,000 kilograms, or 2,204.6 pounds. When citing metric tons, identify them as metric on first reference. In later references, tons is enough so long as there aren’t any figures in short tons. Don’t use tonnes for metric tons. Tory Tory and Tories are acceptable when referring to the Conservative Party in the U.K. Toys “R” Us Inc. In headlines, use single quote marks: Toys ‘R’ Us. tracking stock Class of shares whose value reflects the performance and prospects of a unit, rather than the entire company. traded hands Write were traded or changed hands.

314

Words & Terms

trading, trade When reporting about the buying and selling on stock, bond and commodity exchanges, refer to trading, not trade. Eliminate expressions such as in morning trade and the start of trade. Trading shouldn’t be used as a synonym for sales, or trading statement for sales report. tranche Part of a stock or bond sale or bank loan. Use portion and provide a description on first reference. Treasuries Not Treasurys when referring to U.S. government securities. treasury Capitalize when referring to a national treasury; that includes Treasury bills, notes, etc. TSE Abbreviation for both the Tokyo and Toronto stock exchanges. When used in headlines, add the country name as needed for clarity. turnover Not a substitute for sales or revenue. Avoid when referring to the pace at which a company sells what it makes (inventory turnover) or collects money from its customers (receivables turnover). tweet Tweet may be used as a noun and verb for communications via Twitter. Use alternatives to reduce word echoes such as wrote on her Twitter account, posted on Twitter, Twitter message, Twitter post. U.A.E. United Arab Emirates should be spelled in full on first reference. Later references may use the abbreviation U.A.E.

Words & Terms

315

U.K. Use in all references to the United Kingdom except for quotations. U.S. Use in all references to the United States except for quotations. U.S. Cabinet departments Write the names of U.S. cabinet departments in full. The only acceptable abbreviation is USDA, which may be used in commodity stories. DOJ may be used only in headlines, when the fit is tight and when the context makes the abbreviation clear. Short department names may be reversed into an even shorter form:  ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Agriculture Department Commerce Department Defense Department Education Department Energy Department Interior Department Justice Department Labor Department State Department Transportation Department Treasury Department   Longer department names should retain their original form: 

●● ●● ●● ●●

Department of Health and Human Services Department of Homeland Security Department of Housing and Urban Development Department of Veterans Affairs  

Abbreviations such as DOJ,VA, HUD, DOE and HHS may be used on a limited basis in compelling quotations. They must be preceded

316

Words & Terms

by the long department name that sets up the initials in the abbreviation, i.e., Department of Justice rather than Justice Department. USDA should be preceded by U.S. Department of Agriculture. On second reference, the department works so long as there isn’t more than one department in the story. Write cabinet without capitalizing the first letter, even when referring to a specific government advisory body. Ulaanbaatar Use this spelling for the capital of Mongolia. under Not a substitute for less than. Implies a physical relationship. Unilever Owned jointly by Unilever NV, based in the Netherlands, and Unilever Plc, based in the U.K. The two companies operate as a single entity, though their shares trade separately. United Nations Write the full name, United Nations, on first reference; UN, without periods, on second reference. university names Refer to universities, colleges, institutes and other schools by the full name, not a nickname, on first reference: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The shortened Virginia Tech may be used on later references. For educational institutions that append a campus location to the name, use at rather than a hyphen or comma:  University of California at Berkeley   Rather than:  University of California, Berkeley University of California-Berkeley  For colleges that don’t include a location in the name of the main campus, incorporate it in the narrative.

Words & Terms

317

unnamed Not a synonym for unidentified when writing about news reports that rely on one or more anonymous sources. unprofitable Preferable to money-losing, loss-making, etc. up to Acceptable as a substitute for as much as only in headlines: Sony Will Fire Up to 3,000 Workers. In stories, use the most precise term for what is being measured: as much as, as many as, as deep as, as far as, as high as, as fast as, as few as, etc. upside Jargon for the increase in a security or market. vague language Avoid words, terms and expressions that are vague. Try to find specific alternatives. Examples:  Blue chips: Jargon that is supposed to mean the largest and most well-known companies in a stock market. Be specific: One of the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Foreign: What is foreign to one person isn’t always foreign to another. Use only in well-established terms such as foreign currency or foreign exchange. Determine what the word is trying to convey: overseas sales, European accounting laws, South American customs, international laws, stores outside the U.S. Green: Green and environmentally friendly are vague. Give specific examples of what a company, government or institution is doing or has done. Leading: Not a synonym for biggest or best. Say what is being measured and how: the world’s biggest airline, based on revenue passenger miles; the largest U.S. household-goods maker (noting later that the yardstick is sales). Avoid vagaries such as: leading maker of liquid-crystal displays or leading maker of passenger planes.

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Modest: Vague and opinionated modifier. Give a percentage: a 2.5 increase in net income, rather than a modest increase. On the year: This phrase could mean year to date, from a year earlier, the past year or the fiscal year. Specify. Outsize: Vague modifier. Be specific. Short term, medium term, long term: Specify: one hour, less than two years, in the next six months, more than 10 years, three to five years. Single digit, double digit: A single-digit percentage change could range from 1 percent to 9 percent. A double-digit increase could range from 10 percent to 99 percent. Use a more exact figure when possible, for example, Sales fell 5 percent. Net income rose 17 percent. Small-cap, mid-cap, large-cap: Abbreviations for smallcapitalization, mid-capitalization and large-capitalization companies with a certain stock market value. Provide a range of values instead. Definitions vary. In the U.S., small-cap is usually $250 million to $1 billion; mid-cap is $1 billion to $10 billion and large-cap is more than $10 billion. Strong, weak: Use these modifiers to describe a currency, commodity, economy or government only when specifically used by an official or an organization. It’s acceptable to use strengthen and weaken as a verb for a currency, commodity or economy.  valuation A security’s price in relation to measures such as earnings, sales or net worth. Vatican bank Vatican bank or Vatican’s bank may be used on first reference. Don’t write Vatican Bank. The official name, in English, is the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR.

Words & Terms

319

versus Write the word versus in text and story headlines: It’s the bears versus the bulls; Nanning Sugar Reports 2013 Net Income Versus Net Loss Year Ago. Abbreviate as v. when citing lawsuits: Roe v.Wade. Use VS only in standalone flash headlines: *WIDGETS 2Q NET 7C-SHARE VS LOSS 10C-SHARE. visibility Market jargon often used in connection with people’s ability to predict a company’s earnings or sales. When visibility is low, they aren’t sure what the figures will look like. volatility A measure, usually expressed in annual percentage terms, of how much a price, index or interest rate varied from its average for a given period. For example: 10-day volatility or 30-day volatility. Volcker Rule Capitalize both words. The rule named for former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker restricts the types of trades that deposit-taking banks are allowed to make with their own money. The Volcker Rule, required as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is designed to reduce the likelihood that a bank would need a taxpayerfunded bailout. volume Be precise. The stock rose 10 percent in trading of 2.3 million shares, not volume of 2.3 million. Trading volume is redundant. Wal-Mart Use a hyphen in all references to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and stores carrying the Wal-Mart name. Wall Street When Wall Street is used to describe the U.S. financial industry, specify on second reference which parts: securities firms, commercial

320

Words & Terms

banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds, leveraged buyout companies. Geographically, Wall Street refers to the street where the New York Stock Exchange is based. It’s where the biggest banks were originally located and where John Pierpont Morgan went to work. Washington Stands alone as the capital of the U.S. Use Washington, D.C., only when it isn’t clear whether the reference is to the city or to the state of Washington. web Spelling for web terms:  blog the internet the web website web page webcam webcast webmaster  widen Losses, deficits and margins do this when they get larger. Preferable to confusing words such as increase or rise. winter storms Names for winter storms in the U.S. aren’t provided or sanctioned by the National Weather Service and shouldn’t appear in stories. workforce Not work force. worry, worried, worries These are subjective. Use only if someone is quoted saying “I’m worried.”

Words & Terms

321

writedown Use writedown as a noun; write down as a verb. Explain what the company is writing down, and why. Many writedowns occur when a company permanently reduces the value of an asset. Be transparent when a writedown stems from mark-to-market pricing of financial assets. Their value may be increased in a later report. year earlier The best way to refer to earnings in the previous year’s quarter is usually the concise phrase a year earlier. Sometimes it’s appropriate to write more descriptively: in last year’s third quarter. Don’t use in the year-earlier quarter, a year ago, in the year-ago quarter or in the same quarter a year earlier. Use a year earlier in reference to earnings rather than a year ago, which is inaccurate because it means a year ago today: Net income rose 10 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. zero-coupon bonds Securities that mature in more than one year and don’t pay interest.

Index Note: Words & Terms entries are marked with italics. Page numbers followed by f refer to chart and photo figures. % (percent symbol), 289 $ (dollar sign), 241 - (minus sign), 277 401(k), 214 Abbreviations, 214–215 for central banks, 229 for company names, 235 for currencies, 241 for dates, 243–244 in headlines, 55, 57 for interbank rates, 266–267 for rankings, 305 for state names, 307 for titles, 312 for U.S. Cabinet departments, 315–316 Above, 216 Academic degrees, 216 Accents, 216

Access, ethical standards and, 114–115 Accounts receivable days, 177 Accuracy, 2, 3, 108–110 Acquitted, 271 Action verbs, 61, 133 Active voice, 79 Adjectives, use of, 77 Administration, 216 Admit, admitted, 271, 302 Adoption, of legislation, 239 Adverbs, use of, 77 Advertisers, influence of, 116–117 Advertorials, 117 Adviser, 216 Affect, 216 Affordable Care Act, 284 African-American, 217 After-tax, 217 Age, of newsmakers, 217 Agencies, government, 130, 219

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Index AGGD function, 132 Agreed, 217–218 Airline flights, numbers of, 283 Allegations, 108–110 Alleged, allegedly, 271 All-time, 298 Almost, 283–284, 298 Al-Qaeda, 218 ALRT function, 20, 30, 211 Although, 226 American depositary receipts, 218 American English, use of, 80, 218–219 American Indian, 219, 280 American Metal Market, 16 American-style options, 287 Ampersand, 219, 236, 280 Analyst recommendations (ANR) function, 200 And: clauses containing, 226 use of ampersand vs., 219, 236, 280 Anecdotes: in economic coverage, 189 as leads, 63–64, 67 Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, 32–33 Anonymous sources, 23–26 ANR function, 200 Antitrust, 219 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), 219 Apple Inc., 34, 105, 106f, 131, 174, 269 Arabian Gulf, 290 Arbitrageur (arbitrager), 220 Arithmetic mean, see Mean Asian names, 279 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 219 As much as, 317 Assertions, 77, 78 Asset-backed securities, 142 Associated Press Stylebook, 213 Assumed debt, 276

@business Twitter handle, 85, 86f, 87f ATM (automated teller machine), 220 Attributions: for anonymous sources, 23–26 for Terminal data, 48 transparency in, 112 Australia, 220 Author, 220 Automated teller machine (ATM), 220 Automation, xii, 101–103 Average, 95, 220 Avian influenza, 220 Awards, 124–125 Background information, 17–18 “Background,” interviews on, 23–24 Backreaders, 81 Balance sheet, 159 Bancorp, 220 Bangladesh, names in, 279 Bank of America Corp., 65–66, 220 Bankrupt, 221 Bar charts, 93f, 94, 94f, 190f Bargain hunting, 221 Basel, 221 Basic earnings per share, 221 Basis points, 221 Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), 223 BBLS function, 207 BDVD function, 181-182 BDXY Index function, 205 Bear market, 221–222 Beat: demonstrating knowledge of, 85 learning a, 15–21 Beat reporting, 5 Because vs. since, 304 BEES function, 192, 206 Behavior, at events and interviews, 123–124 Beige Book, 222

Index Believe, 222 Benchmark securities, 140 Between, 222 BFW, see Bloomberg First Word BGOV (Bloomberg Government), 9, 223 BI, see Bloomberg Intelligence BICO function, 48, 172 BI function, 7, 48, 154, 208 Big data, 243 Big Three, 222 BILL function, 206 Billion, 277, 300 Bill of indictment (bill of information), 260 Bin Laden, Osama, 222 Bios, social media, 86 BIO page, 47, 88 Biotech, 310 BIP function, 48, 172, 208 Bird flu, 220 Bitcoin(s), 222–223 Black, as racial description, 217 Black box, 223 Blind trust accounts, 119 Bloomberg, Michael, x, 5, 118, 223 Bloomberg Barclays indices, 142 Bloomberg Billionaires Index (RICH function), 46, 210 Bloomberg BNA, 9 Bloomberg Briefs, 8, 11, 34, 35, 209 Bloomberg Businessweek: Bloomberg Way for, xi collaboration of other platforms and, 13, 14f company coverage in, 153–154 enterprise reporting by, 41–42 as platform, 6, 7 terminal function for accessing, 13, 209 Bloomberg.com, 7 breaking news on, 33 collaboration of other platforms and, 12 headlines for, 59

Bloomberg Commodity Index, 150 Bloomberg Digital, 7 Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index (BDXY Index function), 205 Bloomberg Editorial & Research, xi automated news stories from, 101 collaboration at, 9–14 employee conduct policies from, 120–122 external conflicts for, 118 independence of, 116 mandate at, 1 plagiarism policy at, 115 platforms of, 4–9 restrictions on investment activities from, 119–120 standalone headlines at, 54–55 stories on Michael Bloomberg, 223 success and reputation of, 107 Bloomberg First Word (BFW): automated information for, 102 and Bloomberg.com, 7 bond price reporting on, 139 breaking news on, 4, 31, 32, 34 collaboration of other platforms and, 11 corrections for, 83 earnings coverage in, 155 economic reporting in, 185 headlines for, 56–59 style guide specific to, 213 terminal function for accessing, 209 Bloomberg Government (BGOV), 9, 223 Bloomberg Intelligence (BI), 7–8 analysis by, 5, 33 and Bloomberg.com, 7 company profiles in, 172 identifying trends with data from, 151 independence of, 116 linked/touted content on, 35 in multiplatform approach, 34

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Index Bloomberg Intelligence (BI), (continued) quotes from employees of, 223 research on beat with, 16, 19 searching content produced by, 47–48 terminal function for sorting data in, 208 Bloomberg Intelligence company primer (BICO function), 48, 172 Bloomberg Intelligence Primers (BIP function), 48, 208 Bloomberg law search (BBLS function), 207 Bloomberg LIVE, 9 Bloomberg LP: affiliation with, on social media, 86 and Bloomberg BNA, 9 covering customers of, 3 covering stories about, 117–118 financial conflicts for, 119 independence of organizations under, 116 offers for employees of, 123 posting internal information from, 87 Bloomberg magazines (MAG) function, 13, 209 Bloomberg Markets, 6, 7, 13, 209 Bloomberg media (MEDI) function, 6, 209 Bloomberg message system, 122 Bloomberg MSG9, 118 Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 5, 8, 151, 209, 223 Bloomberg News (BN): on Bloomberg.com, 7 collaboration of other platforms and, 11 corrections by, 83 first story on, 6 headlines for, 52–56 importance of Bloomberg Way to, ix–xi searching content from, 46

Bloomberg Pay Index (PAY), 47, 210 Bloomberg Prophets, 5 Bloomberg Radio, 6 breaking news on, 32, 34 citing, 223 collaboration of other platforms and, 11, 12 linked/touted content on, 35 reporters’ appearances on, 35–37 soundbites from, 135 Bloomberg Social Velocity Monitor (BSV function), 89-90, 200 Bloomberg Television, 6 Bloomberg Way for, xi breaking news on, 32, 34 citing, 223 collaboration of other platforms and, 11, 12, 13f linked/touted content on, 35 reporters’ appearances on, 35–37 soundbites from, 135 Bloomberg Terminal, x, 4–6, 199–211. See also specific functions accessing style guide on, 213 adding value to market coverage for users of, 128 bond functions in, 203–205 commodity functions in, 206 context for breaking news from, 20 converting currencies with, 242 converting fractions to decimals in, 245, 257 converting units of measurement with, 276, 277, 310 currency functions in, 205 economic and government functions in, 206–207 economic information in, 188–189, 192 equity functions in, 200–202 equity index functions in, 202–203 headlines for Bloomberg.com vs., 59

Index non-asset class-specific functions in, 199–200 ratings information on, 225 research with, 39, 44–48, 129, 172 search functions in, 207–208 social media-related functions of, 88–89 stock market news on, 135 subheadlines in, 54 tips for using, 210–211 Bloomberg U.S. Startups Barometer, 179 Bloomberg View, 5 collaboration of other platforms and, 12 conflicts of interest for employees of, 120 linked/touted content on, 35 in multiplatform approach, 34 social media account for, 85 terminal function for accessing, 210 Bloomberg Way: changes to, x–xi principles of, 1–3 and success of Bloomberg News, ix–x transparency and independence as tenets of, x The Bloomberg Way (Matt Winkler), ix BLRT function, 211 Blue chips, 317 BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke AG), 223 BN, see Bloomberg News BNA function, 209 BNEF, see Bloomberg New Energy Finance BNEF function, 8 Board(s): currency, 242 management, 224, 274 supervisory, 224, 274, 308 use of term, 224

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 254 Boilerplate, 75 BOLL function, 105 Bollinger Bands, 104, 105 Bolsa, 224 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 224 Bonds: contingent convertible, 233 convertible, 142 government, 139–142, 167 high-yield, 262 international, 267–268 junk, 138, 224, 225, 262 U.S. Treasury vs. corporate, 167, 168f zero-coupon, 321 Bonds and loans search (SRCH function), 143, 208 Bond auctions, 141 Bond coupons, 224 Bondholders, 169, 225 Bond market, 138–143 coverage of movement in, 128–131 markets related to, 142–143 Terminal information on, 203–205 terminology in, 138–139 Bond-market indexes, 141–142 Bond price: in debt coverage, 173 in earnings coverage, 159 factors in, 167–169 reporting on, 138, 139 Bond ratings, 169, 224–225 Bond yield forecasts (BYFC) function, 203 Book value, 225 Brackets, with direct quotations, 296 Breaking news: economic trends behind, 191–192 headlines for, 54 impact of, on markets, 127–128 reporting on, 4, 30–33 Brent, 285

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328

Index Brevity, writing with, 74–80 Brexit referendum, 193–194 BRIC, 225–226 BRICS, 225–226 BRIEF function, 209 British thermal units (btu), 226 Broadcast reporters, in bylines, 223 Brokerages, 236 BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange), 224 BSTARTUP Index DES function, 179 BSV function, 89 BSVM function, 200 Btu (British thermal units), 226 Bull market, 221–222 But, 226 Buyback(s), 181, 226 Buyer’s profile function (BUYP), 166, 200 Buyout, buy out, 226 BUYP function, 166, 200 Buy side, 132, 226 BVSM function, 200 BYFC function, 203 Cabinet, 315-316 CACS function, 200 CACT function, 207 Calculations, checking, 82 Calendar (CDR) function, 211 Call options, 226–227 Cambodia, names in, 279 Canada Goose Holdings Inc., 178 Capital cities, 227 Capital controls, 227 Capital increase, 227 Capitalization. See also entries for specific terms of Apple product names, 269 of company names, 236 of drug names, 280 of geographic regions, 298–299 of governing bodies, 259 for headlines, 261 of hurricane names, 280–281

of interbank rate abbreviations, 266–267 of prepositions, 292 for references to Olympic Games, 285–286 in social media posts, 84 of web-related terms, 320 Capital structure function, see CAST function Captions, corrections in, 83 Carry trade, 242 Cash and stock transactions, 164 Cash earnings, 227 Cash flow, 227 Cash flow statements, 159 Cash reserves, 227–228 Cash transactions, 163 CAST function, 46, 170, 203 Casualties, 228 Causation, correlation vs., 97–98 CCA function, 203 CCRV function, 206 CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), 142, 233 CDR function, 211 CDSs (credit-default swaps), 142–143, 240–241 Cell phone, 278 CEM function, 206 Cent, 228, 250 Central African Republic, 229 Central banks, 188, 229. See also Federal Reserve CEO (chief executive officer), 229–230 CFO (chief financial officer), 230 CFS function, 47, 208 Chairman, chairwoman, 229 Characterizations, 77–78 Charge (financial term), 157, 286 Charged (legal term), 271 Charts: clarifying information with, 91–92 creating, 92–95 for currency market reports, 145, 145f

Index in economic coverage, 189, 190f in market coverage, 134–135 in tweets, 85, 87f Chief executive officer (CEO), 229–230 Chief financial officer (CFO), 230 Chief operating officer (COO), 230 Children, referencing names of, 278–279 China: currency devaluation by, 33–34 and global influence of commodity markets, 147 government coverage of, 194–195 mainland, 274 people’s names in, 279 Chip, 230 Chipmaker, 230 Citations, 223, 272 City names, 230–231 Claim, 271 Class-action lawsuit, 271 Class A shares, 231 Class B shares, 231 Clean coal, 231 Clichés, 78–79, 231–232 Closely held companies, 233, 294 Closing prices, 138 Closing prices chart (GP function), 46, 199 CMDS function, 206 CMOs (collateralized mortgage obligations), 233 CN function, 209 Cnooc Ltd., 233 CN TWT function, 172 CoCos (contingent convertible bonds), 233 Collaboration: at Bloomberg Editorial & Research, 9–14 in enterprise reporting, 41–42 on government coverage, 195–196

Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), 142, 233 Collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), 233 College names, 316 Colombia, 233 Columbia, 233 Commas, 282, 303 Command numbers, Terminal, 210–211 Commentators, reporters as, 36–37 Committee names, congressional, 238 Committee to Protect Journalists, 124 Commodities playbook (CPLY) function, 206 Commodity curve analysis (CCRV) function, 206 Commodity markets, 147–151 coverage of movement in, 128–131 implications of changes in, 147–150 terminal information about, 206 themes for stories about, 150–151 Commodity organizations, 151. See also specific organizations Commodity price forecasts (CPFC) function, 129, 206 Commodity ranked returns (CRR) function, 129, 206 Common, 233 Common Agricultural Policy, 250 Common euro bonds, 267 Communication: online, 122 with subjects of stories, 82 Compagnie, Companhia, Compania, 234 Company(-ies): access to, 114–115 comparing performance of, 137 context for earnings coverage from, 158 impact of government on strategies of, 193–194 influence of commodity markets on, 147–148

329

330

Index Company(-ies): (continued) order of, in tables, 309 private information about, 114 researching, with Bloomberg Terminal, 47–48 size and scope information for, 304–305 Company coverage, 153–182 context for, 173–174 debt in, 166–170 earnings in, 154–159 equity changes in, 177–182 merger and acquisition stories in, 160–166 and newsworthy corporate announcements, 170–173 valuation information in, 162–164, 174–177 Company default risk (DRSK) function, 204 Company filings search (CFS) function, 47, 208 Company headquarters, location of, 234 Company management function, see MGMT function Company names: ampersands in, 219 designations in, 234 eponymous, 249 general recommendations on, 279–280 spelling of, 234–237 The in, 311 Company news (CN) function, 209 Company profile (CP) function, 46, 200 Comparative returns (COMP) function, 199 Compared to, compared with, 237 Compare equities in bar-chart format (GX) function, 201 Compare indicators feature, see GRE function COMP function, 199

Complaints, about stories, 80 Compound modifiers, 262–263, 282–283 Compound phrases, 291 Computers, unauthorized access to, 115 Confidential information, 110, 114, 120 Conflict(s): in good headlines, 51 of interest, 3, 116–120 Confounding variables, 101 Conglomerates, 237 Congo, 237 Congress, 237 Consensus, 239 Consultancy, 239 Contact: with interview subjects, 28 maintaining, with sources, 22 Contacts, reporters’, 21, 41 Contests, 124–125 Context: for company coverage, 172–174 for earnings coverage, 158 in First Word headlines, 58 for market coverage, 134 for merger and acquisition stories, 160–161 for movements in currency market, 146 in nut paragraph, 65–66 Contingent convertible bonds (CoCos), 233 Continue, 239 Contract exchange menu (CEM) function, 206 Contractions, 239–240 Contract table menu (CTM function), 206 Control, in mergers and acquisitions, 161 Converted numbers, 301 Convertible bonds, 142

Index Convexity, 240 COO (chief operating officer), 230 Copyrights, on published work, 121 Corporate actions (CACS) function, 200 Corporate actions search (CACT) function, 207 Corporate announcements, 170–173 Correction(s): headline, 56 social media, 86 story, 80–83, 108 Correlation, causation vs., 97–98 Couldn’t be reached, 240 Council of Europe, 250 COUN function, 46, 193 Countries: order of, in tables, 309 size and scope information for, 304 Country sovereign debt ratings (CSDR) function, 203, 225 Coupon, bond, 139 Courtesy titles, 312 CPFC function, 129, 206 CP function, 46, 200 CPLY function, 206 Crawling peg, 242 Credibility, 15–22, 84 Credit, 166 Credit comparable analysis (CCA) function, 203 Credit crunch, 240 Credit-default swaps (CDSs), 142–143, 240–241 Credit derivatives, 240 Credit lines, 240 Credit rating profile (CRPR) function, 173, 203 Credit ratings, 224–225 CRPR function, 173, 203 Equity CRPR function, 225 CRR function, 129, 206 Crude oil, 127, 285

CSDR function, 203, 225 CT function, 206 CTM function, 206 Currencies. See also specific currencies abbreviations for, 215 cents, penny, and pence for, 228 references to, 241–243 Terminal functions related to, 205 Currency band, 242 Currency board, 242 Currency calculator (FXCA) function, 205, 242 Currency defaults (XDF) function, 205 Currency market, 128–131, 143–147 Currency peg, 242 Currency portal (FXIP) function, 45, 205 Currency prices, 145 Currency swaps, 243 Current ratio, 176–177 Custom content, 117 Customized securities, 233 CV function, 245, 257 Cyclones, 280–281 Danish names, 216 Data: evaluating relevance of, 187 studying data related to beat, 19 use of term, 243 Data analysis, 91–106 automation of, 101–103 by Bloomberg Intelligence, 5 charting for, 92–95 errors in, 100–101 in technical analysis, 103–106 terminology for, 95–100 Dates: of fiscal periods, 255–256 format for, 243–244 use of days vs., 244–245 DAYB function, 8, 209

331

332

Index Daybreak news service, 8, 11, 209 Days, references to, 244–245 DCX function, 211 DDIS function, 46, 167, 203 Deals, corporate, 160–166 Dealers, 245 Death, references to person’s, 245 Death crosses, 105–106, 106f Debt: corporate, 166–170, 276 government, 139–142 in takeovers, 276 Debt distribution function, see DDIS function DEBT function, 204 Debt holder, 245 Debt market, see Bond market Debt-to-equity ratio, 176 Decades, numerals for, 283 Decimals, 245, 289, 300–301 Deck headlines, 53–54 Declined comment, 245 Defamation claims, 110–113 Deflation, 245 Degrees, academic, 216 Demand, 76 Demerger, 246 Denials, from subjects of stories, 109 Department, 316 Department of Justice (DOJ), 315–316 Depreciation, 246 Derivatives, 131, 246 Description (DES) function, 199 Despite, clauses containing, 226 Detroit, Michigan, 68–69 Devaluation, 246 Diet (Japanese legislature), 246 Diluted earnings per share, 246 Dim Sum bonds, 267 Directors, 224 Direct quotations, see Quotations Disclosure, of nonpublic information, 120 Disinflation, 245 Diversity, of sources, 22

Dividends, 181–182 Dividend payout ratio, 177 Documents, from anonymous sources, 25 Document search (DS function), 47, 208 DOJ (Department of Justice), 315–316 Dollar sign ($), 241 Dot-com companies, 236, 246 Double digit, 318 Double possessives, 291 Downing Street, attributions to, 242 Downsize, 247 Downstream, 247 Dragon bonds, 268 DRSK function, 204 DS function, 47, 208 Duration, 247 Dusseldorf, Germany, 247 Dutch auction, 248 DVD function, 181–182 Earnings: covering news related to, 154–159 Earnings Analyzer, 154 Earnings and estimates overview, see EE function Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), 227, 248 Earnings reports, 136, 137, 154–159 Earnouts, 248 Earthquakes, 280 Eastern Europe, 298 Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), 156, 227, 248 ECB, see European Central Bank ECFC function, 186, 192, 207 Echoes, word, 79 Ecofin, 250 ECO function, 184, 185, 206 Economic coverage, 184–192 examples of, 185–187 goals of, 184 guidelines for, 187–192

Index key performance indicators in, 184–185 and market coverage, 136–137 relationship of government coverage and, 183–184 Economic forecasts, see ECFC function Economic indicators, 136 Economic reports, 151 Economic statistics, rounding, 300–301 Economy: commodity prices and, 149–150 terminal functions for measures of, 206–207 ECST function, 185, 207 ECTR function, 192, 207 Editorial functions, Terminal, 208–210 Editors: approval for anonymously sourced stories from, 24 communication with, 70 informing, of conflicts of interest, 119–120 legal team, 110 pitching stories to, 40, 42–44 reviews of hot headlines by, 55 web, headline writing by, 59 EE function, 154, 155, 200 Effect, 216 Election terms, 248 The Elements of Style (William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White), ix Elizabeth II, 85 Ellipsis, with direct quotations, 296 Email, 248 Embargoed news, 82 Embassy, 249 EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region, 299 Emerging markets, currency highs and lows in, 242 Employee conduct, 121–122 Ended, ending (of fiscal period), 256 Endorsements, 122–123

ENDOW function, 47, 209 English, American, 80, 218–219 Enterprise reporting, 37–42 Enterprise value, 164, 201 Environmentally friendly, 317 Eonia, 251 Eponymous names, 249 EQRV function, 175, 201 EQS function, 47, 208 Equities market, 135–138 coverage of movement in, 128–131 identifying winners and losers in, 137 reasons for movement in, 136–137 style guidelines for coverage of, 138 terminal information on, 200–202 Equity indexes, 202–203 Equity offerings, see IPO function Equity relative value (EQRV) function, 175, 201 Equity screening (EQS function), 47, 208 NH BLC function, 135 ERN function, 154 Errors. See also Mistakes in data analysis, 100–101 in headlines, 56, 81–82 readers’ reporting of, 80 Estimates, 249 Ethical standards, 107–125 and access, 114–115 on accuracy and fairness, 108–110 on behavior during events and interviews, 123–124 in Bloomberg Way, 3 for conducting interviews, 29 on conflicts of interest, 116–120 and defamation claims, 110–113 on employee conduct, 121–122 on endorsements, 122–123 and plagiarism, 115–116 and privacy, 113–114 related to contests, 124–125 EU (European Union), 193–194, 252

333

334

Index EU function, 193 Euribor, 251, 266 Euro, 193, 249–250 Eurobonds, 267 Euro bonds, 267 Eurodollars, 250 Euro group, 250 Europe: bond market and currency in, 193 institutions in, 250–252 unemployment in, 189, 190f Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, 299 European Banking Federation, 251 European Central Bank (ECB), 88, 140, 251 European Commission, 251 European Court of Justice, 251 European Economic and Monetary Union, 251 European Investment Bank, 251 European Monetary Union, 251 European Parliament, 251 European-style options, 287 European Union (EU), 193–194, 252 Eurostat, 252 Euro zone, 250 Events, behavior during, 123–124 EV function, 201 Exceptional item (extraordinary item), 286 Exchange rate, 243 Exchange-rate mechanism, 243 Exclamation points, 236, 280 Expectations, market movement due to, 137 Expected, 252 Expiry, 252 Export-import banks (ex-im banks), 252–253 Expressions, possessives in, 291 External conflicts of interest, 118

External influences, on markets, 130, 148 Extrapolation, 100 Facebook, 84, 85 FA CHART functions, 201 Factors, in retail industry, 299 FA EMP function, 172 FA function, 46, 74, 154, 172, 174, 201 FA GEO function, 172 Fairness, 3, 108–110 Fair Trade Commission, of Japan (FTC), 257 Familiar names, of companies, 234 Fannie Mae, 253 FA PROD function, 172 FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), 253 Far East, 299 Farther, 253 FBI (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation), 253 Fear, 253 Federal funds (fed funds), 254 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), 254 Federal Reserve, 136, 183, 254 Federal Reserve Board, 254 Feel, 222 Female, 255 Fewer, 255 FFM function, 134 FIFA, 41–42 Financial analysis, see FA function Financial conflicts of interest, 119–120 Financial crisis of 2008, 142, 166, 183 Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), 255 Financial Services Administration (FSA), 255

Index Financial statements, 159 Financing: for corporate strategies, 168–169 for startups, 179–180 Finra (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), 255 Fired, 255 FIRS function, 57, 209 First Word audio squawk (SQUA) function, 210 First Word FX, 213 FIRV function, 168, 204 Fiscal periods, dates of, 255–256 Five Fs, 3 Fixed-income relative value (FIRV) function, 168, 204 Flotation, 256 -fold (suffix), 214, 283 FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee), 254 Food & Agriculture Organization, 149 Forecasts, 76, 155, 186, 249, 287 Forego, forgo, 256 Foreign, 317 Foreign currencies, 256 Foreign exchange forecasts (FXFC) function, 129, 205 Foreign exchange (currency) market, 128–131, 143–147 Foreign languages, Terminal stories in, 6 Foreign reserves, 256 Foreign words: for legal terms, 272–273 use of, 256 Former Soviet republics, 306 Forwards, 256–257 401(k), 214 Four-paragraph lead, xi, 67–69 Fractions, 245, 257 Freddie Mac, 253 FSA (Financial Services Administration), 255 FSRC function, 16

FTC (Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, U.S. Federal Trade Commission), 257 Funds from operations, 257 Fundraiser, fundraising, 248 Fund screener (FSRC) function, 16 Further, 253 Futures, 148, 257 Futures contracts table (CT function), 206 Futures markets, 285 Futures orders, in retail industry, 299 FX24 function, 205 FXCA function, 205, 242 FXFC function, 129, 205 FXIP function, 45, 205 G-7 (Group of Seven) countries, 257 G-8 (Group of Eight) countries, 258 G-10 (Group of 10) countries, 258 G-20 (Group of 20) countries, 258 GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), 258 GADF function, 209 Gadfly, 5 breaking news on, 32–33 linked/touted content on, 35 social media account for, 85 Terminal function for viewing, 209 value comparison on, 164–165 Gasoline, 258 Gay marriage, 20, 20f GCDS function, 204 GC function, 204 GDP (gross domestic product), 185 GDRs (global depositary receipts), 258 GE function, 156, 175 Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), 258 General news, in government coverage, 195 Genetically modified (GM), 258 Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 258

335

336

Index Geographic regions, 298–299 German names, 216 Germany, 299 GEW function, 187, 192, 207 G function, 93, 94 Gifts, accepting, 122–123 GIP function, 199 Girl, 255 GLCO function, 45, 129, 147, 206 Global commodities portal, 147 Global commodity prices, see GLCO function Global credit-default swaps (GCDS) function, 204 Global depositary receipts (GDRs), 258 Global Economy Watch, see GEW function Global news events, in commodity coverage, 150 Global overview (STAT) function, 200 GM (genetically modified), 258 GMM function, 128 GMOs (genetically modified organisms), 258 Golden crosses, 105–106, 106f Goldman Sachs Group Inc., 6, 53–54, 65–66, 70–74, 78, 170, 178 Goodwill, 259 Gotcha journalism, 108 Government(s): bonds issued by, 139–142, 167 in commodity coverage, 151 in company coverage, 160–161 and company/industry strategies, 193–194 as external influence on markets, 130 implications of commodity prices for, 149 influence of, on stock market, 137 power of, 192–193 references to names of, 259

Terminal functions for information on, 206–207 Government agencies, 219 Government coverage, 192–196 and company/industry strategies, 193–194 guidelines for, 194–196 and power of governments, 192–193 relationship of economic coverage and, 183–184 Government debt, 139–142 Governors, 254, 259 GP function, 46, 199 GPO function, 200 Grand jury, 259–260 Graph curves (GC) function, 204 Graph yield (GY) function, 204 Green (environmentally friendly), 317 Greenbacks, 260 GRE function, 175, 201 Gross domestic product (GDP), 185 Gross margin, 275 Group of 10 (G-10) countries, 258 Group of 20 (G-20) countries, 258 Group of Eight (G-8) countries, 258 Group of Seven (G-7) countries, 257 Grow, growth, 76, 260 Growth, economic, 140, 150 GT function, 200 Guilty, 271 The Gulf, 260 GX function, 201 GY function, 204 Haircut, 260 Halve, 261 Hand calculator (HC) function, 211 Hanover, Germany, 261 Hashtags, for stories, 86 HC function, 211 HCP functions, 200 HCPI function, 200 HCS function, 211

Index HDS function, 16, 132, 201 Headlines. See also entries for specific terms abbreviations in, 215, 235–236, 310 about earnings, 155 from automated journalism, 101–102 for Bloomberg.com, 59 for Bloomberg First Word, 56–59 for Bloomberg News, 52–56 for breaking news, 30–33 capitalization for, 261 city names in, 230–231 company names in, 234–236, 246 corrections to, 83 currencies in, 241 for currency market stories, 144 days of the week in, 245 deck, 53–54 echoing, in leads, 59, 79 errors in, 56, 81–82 fairness and accuracy in, 109 flash, 215, 319 hot, 55 hyphens in, 263 numerals in, 283 prepositions in, 292 rounding numbers in, 301 “said to,” 55 standalone, 54–55 for stories with anonymous sourcing, 26 for story pitches, 43 subheadlines, 54 titled names in, 313 U.S. Cabinet departments in, 315 writing, 50–59 Headline sender (RIF STR, RIFR), 211 Hedge funds, 261 Hedging, 261 HELP function, 103, 210 Hemingway, Ernest, 49 Hezbollah, 261 High-frequency trading, 262

High-yield bonds, 262 Historical intraday price chart (GPO) function, 200 Historical return histogram (HRH) function, 99, 200 Historic levels, 173, 283, 298 Hive off, 262 Hoaxes, 81 Holders, 262 Honoraria, 123 Honorifics, 312–313 Hope, 222 Hot headlines, 55 However, clauses containing, 226 HP function, 46 HR function, 121 HRH function, 99, 200 Hurricanes, 280 Hype, 76 Hyphens, 262–265, 282–284, 289 Icahn, Carl, 88, 88f ICE Futures Europe exchange, 285 IC function, 211 Idioms, 80 If, use of whether vs., 265 IFMO function, 192, 207 ILBE function, 207 Illegal, 265 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 265 Immigrants, 265 Imperial measurements, 275 Implied volatility, 265 Income, 158, 281, 282, 287 Independence, x, 116–117 Index Browser, see IN function Indexes, 265 India: and global influence of commodity markets, 147 people’s names in, 279 place names in, 265–266 size of economy of, 192

337

338

Index Indictments, grand jury, 260 Indonesian names, 279 Industry(-ies): comparing IPO to, 177–178 context for earnings coverage from, 158 financial metrics specific to, 159 impact of government on strategies of, 193–194 Inflation, 140, 266 Inflationary pressure, 266 Inflation monitor (IFMO) function, 192, 207 Information: background, 17–18 bill of, 260 double-checking, 81, 112 identifying, 58 newsworthy, in press releases, 170–172 nonpublic, 120 sourcing, 21–26 IN function, 129, 142, 204 ING Groep NV, 266 Initial public offerings (IPOs), 177–179, 266 Initial public offerings search, see IPO function Insiders, 266 Instagram, 84 Instant Bloomberg chat, 122 Integrated circuit, 230 Intel Corp.: dividend payouts by, 182 press release from, 171–172 stock price of, 99–100, 99f, 137 Intensity, of earthquakes, 280 Interbank rates, 266–267 Interest rates, 136, 140 Interest-rate swaps, 267 Internal conflicts of interest, 116–117 International bonds, 267–268

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 265 Internet domains, company names containing, 236, 246 Intervention, 268 Interviews: behavior during, 123–124 in enterprise reporting, 41 guidelines for conducting, 26–29 In the money (for contracts), 287 Intraday price chart (GIP) function, 199 Intraday prices, 138 Inventory, 268 Inventory turnover days, 177 Inverted pyramid way of writing, 67 Investment activities, prohibited, 119–120 Investment strategies, 131–132 Investors: information from, 131–133 questions for, 132 in startups, 180 Investor AB, 268 Investor confidence, 19, 167–168 Invest summit, 9 iPad, 269 iPhone, 269 IPOs (initial public offerings), 177–179, 266 iPod, 269 IPO function, 47, 177, 201, 208 Iraq War, 269 Irony, quotation marks to convey, 295–296 ISIS, 269 Islamic State, 269 Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), 269 Israel, 43–44, 288 ISSD function, 204 Issuance, 269 Issuer (securities), 269 Issuer profile (ISSD) function, 204

Index Italy, bond yields in, 141 Its, it’s, 269–270 iTunes, 269 Japan: as Chinese trading partner, 192 fiscal periods in, 256 people’s names in, 279 size of economy of, 192 Jargon, 26, 29, 78, 133, 270 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 270 JOIN function, 211 Joint euro bonds, 267 JPMorgan Chase & Co., 26, 194, 270 Junk bonds, 138, 224, 225, 262 Kangaroo bonds, 268 Kathmandu, Nepal, 270 Key performance indicators, 156, 174– 177, 184–185 Kilometers per gallon (kpg), 277 Kilometers per hour (kph), 277 Kimchi bonds, 268 Kiwi bonds, 268 KKR & Co., 169 Koninklijke, 270 Koran, 270 Korean names, 279 kpg (kilometers per gallon), 277 kph (kilometers per hour), 277 Kroner, 270 Lag behind, 270 Laid off, 255 Language. See also Word choice for earnings coverage, 157–158 for social media posts, 84 Laos, names in, 279 Large-cap, 318 Launchpad, 129 Law enforcement agencies, cooperation with, 111, 120 Lawsuits, 271, 319. See also Defamation claims

Layout, reviewing, 113 LBO (leveraged buyout) firms, 294 Leading, 317 Lead paragraphs (leads): for currency market stories, 144 echoing, in headlines, 59, 79 in four-paragraph lead structure, 67–69 function of, 60 guidelines for writing, 60–65 League tables (LEAG) function, 208 Legal citations, 272 Legal team editors, 110 Legal terms, appropriate use of, 271–273 Legislation, terms related to, 238–239 Less, 255 Level, 273 Leveraged buyout (LBO) firms, 294 Leveraged loans, 143 Libel, 110 Libor, 266, 273 Libya, 70–74 Line charts, 94, 95f, 190f Links, in stories, 34–35, 75 LinkedIn, 88 Liquidity ratio, 176–177 Loans: leveraged, 143 syndicated, 143, 309 LOAN function, 208 Local governing bodies, 259 Local sources, finding, 17 London-based Times, 312 London Club, 273 Long term, long-term, 77, 151, 318 Loonie, 274 Losses: coverage of stock market, 137 language for reporting on, 157 net, 281 operating, 287 operating income profit/loss, 158 realized vs. unrealized, 297 use of term, 274

339

340

Index Loss from continuing operations, 157 Loss from operations, 157 LOSS function, 66 Loss-making, 274 -ly (suffix), 214 Lying, about anonymous sources, 25–26 M&As (mergers and acquisitions), 160–166, 276 Macau, China, 274 MACD function, 105 MACD (Moving Average Convergence/ Divergence) line, 105 McDonald’s Corp., 131 Macedonia, 274 Mad cow disease, 274 MADL function, 201 MA function, 47, 71, 160, 165, 201, 208 MAG function, 13, 209 Magnitude, of earthquakes, 280 Mainland China, 274 M&A inversions, 39 Malaysian names, 279 Management board, 224, 274 Maple bonds, 268 MARB function, 33, 201 Margins (financial), 175, 275 Margin of error, 97 Market(s): bear, 221–222 bond (debt), 128–131, 138–143, 203–205 bull, 221–222 commodity, 128–131, 147–151, 206 connections between, 45, 131 currency (foreign exchange), 128– 131, 143–147 daily stories on, 129 equities (stock), 128–131, 135–138, 200–202 external influences on, 130, 148

futures, 285 money, 143 reaction of, to corporate announcements, 172–173 Market breadth (WEIB) function, 203 Market coverage, 127–152 of commodity markets, 147–151 of currency (foreign exchange) market, 143–147 of debt (bond) market, 138–143 and economic coverage, 187 of equities (stock) market, 135–138 function of, 128–131 guidelines for, 133–135 information from traders and investors in, 131–133 Market-implied policy rates (MIPR) function, 207 Market relative value (MRV) function, 130, 202 Massachusetts, possessive for, 307 Mean, 95–97, 220 Measurements, references to, 275–276 Median, 96, 97, 220 MEDI function, 6, 209 Medium term, 318 Meetings, with sources, 22 Member ranked returns (MRR) function, 202 Merck, 48 Merger arbitrage (MARB) function, 33, 201 Mergers & acquisitions database, see MA function Mergers and acquisitions (M&As), 160–166, 276 Metric measurements, 275–276 Metric ton, 313 MGMT function, 46, 71, 201 Microchip, 230 Microsoft, 166, 182 Mid-cap, 318 Midterm, 248

Index Miles per gallon (mpg), 277 Miles per hour (mph), 277 Million, 277, 300 Ministry, 277 Ministry of Finance (MOF), 215 Minus sign, 277 MIPR function, 207 Mistakes, 81, 112. See also Errors Mitsubishi Corp., 277 Mitsui & Co., 277 Mobile phone, 278 Mode, 95–97 Modest, 318 Modifiers, in writing, 77 MOF (Ministry of Finance), 215 Momentum, from scoops, 23 MoM (month-on-month) statistics, 185 Monetary payments, from awards, 125 Monetary policy, 140 Money: explaining role of, 2 following the, 154 Money market rates, 141 Money markets, 143 Month-on-month (MoM) statistics, 185 Moody’s Corp., 225 Moody’s Investor Service, 169, 224, 225 More than, 216 Morgan, John Pierpont, 320 Most-active equities (MOST) function, 137, 202 Most favored nation (status), 278 Motivation, for mergers and acquisitions, 161 MOV function, 202 Moving Average Convergence/ Divergence (MACD) line, 105, 106f mpg (miles per gallon), 277 mph (miles per hour), 277 MRGC function, 201

MRR function, 202 MRV function, 130, 202 Multimedia platforms, breaking news on, 31 Multiplatform approach to reporting, 33–37 Mumbai, India, 266 Muslim, 278 Mutual funds, 278 Myanmar, 278, 279 Names. See also Company names in First Word headlines, 57–58 in good headlines, 51 of newspapers, 281, 311 of people, 278–279, 302 of places in India, 265–266 possessives for, 290–291 of products, 280 of schools, 316 of states, 307 of winter storms, 320 Named (legal term), 272 Namesake companies, 249 Narratives. See also Stories assembling, 69–74 in earnings reporting, 159 flow of, 43 Narrow, 280 National Bureau of Economic Research, 298 National Commercial Bank (NCB), 236 Native American, 219, 280 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 280 Natural disasters, 280–281 NCB (National Commercial Bank), 236 Negative equity, 281 Netherlands, names in, 279 Net income, 281 Net income attributable to common shareholders, 158 Net interest income, 281

341

342

Index Net interest margin, 275 Net loss, 281 Net margin, 275 Networking, by reporters, 18, 19 New issues monitor (NIM function), 204 New products, announcements of, 171 News by topic and region (NI) function, 209 News headlines (NH) function, 209 Newsmakers: identifying, 16–17 personal relationships with, 121 NEWS ON function, 16 News organizations, 215 Newspaper names, 281, 311 Newsroom lawyers, 111, 114 News search (NSE function), 46, 208 News trends, see TREN function Newsworthiness, 2, 170–172 New York City, 281 New York Mercantile Exchange, 285 New York state, 281 New York Stock Exchange, 320 New York Times Co., 281 NH function, 209 Nicknames, for currencies, 241 Nielsen, 310 NI function, 209 Nigeria, 149, 190f NIM function, 204 9/11, 303 NI QUICK function, 9 Nobility, titles for, 312–313 Non-English names, people with, 279 Noninterest income, 282 Nonpublic information, 120 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 280 Notes, organizing, 17, 18, 40–41 Note-taking, 28–29 Not for attribution, interviews conducted, 23–24

NOW function, 211 NSE function, 46, 208 Numbers: in earnings coverage, 158 in First Word headlines, 58 in headlines, 52 hyphen use with, 263 rounding of, 300–301 style guidelines for, 282–284 sustaining narratives with, 73–74 Numerals, 282–283, 289, 290 Nuremberg, Germany, 284 Nut paragraphs: in four-paragraph lead structure, 67–69 guidelines for writing, 65–68 Obamacare, 284 Obscenities, 284 Observers, 284 Occupancy rate, 284 Occupational titles, 312 Odds, 282, 289 Offered rate, 266, 284 Off the record, interviews conducted, 23–24 Oil, 148, 149, 285 OK, 285 Olympic Games, 285–286 One-time, 286 Online, 286 Online communication, 122 On offer, 286 On the year, 318 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), 11, 53, 127, 151, 286 Operating income, 287 Operating income profit/loss, 158 Operating loss, 287 Operating margin, 175, 275 Operating profit, 287 Opinions, of anonymous sources, 25

Index Opinion pieces, 5 Options, 287 Ordinal numbers, 282 Ordinary shares, 287 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, see OPEC Organizations, journalists’ participation in, 118 Outlook, 287 Out of the money (for contracts), 287 Outside work, participation in, 121 Outsize, 318 Outsourcing, 287 Over, 287 Overnight, 311 Oversubscribed sale, 287 Overweight market segment, 288 PAC (political action committee), 248 Paid programming, 117 Pakistan, names in, 279 Palestine, 288 Palladium, 147 Panda bonds, 268 Panel discussions, moderation of, 124 Paraphrasing, 78, 296 Parent companies, references to, 236–237 Parentheses, with quotations, 296 Paris Club, 288 Passage, of legislation, 239 Passive voice, 79–80 Passthrough (securities), 288 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, 284 PAY function, 47, 210 Peer barometer (PBAR) function, 201 Pence, 228 Penny, 228 PEOP function, 16, 17, 46, 208 People: in company coverage, 159 as focus of leads, 62–63 in market coverage, 131–133

names of, 278–279, 302 private information about, 113–114 reporting on, 2 researching, with Bloomberg Terminal, 46–47 People Search database, see PEOP function Per, 288 Percent, 289 Percentages: hyphen use with, 263 in market coverage, 133–134 percentage points vs., 100, 289 rounding, 300 Percentage points, 100, 289 Performance, company: comparing, 137 key indicators of, 156, 174–177, 184–185 of startups, 180 Period, 289 Perry, Katy, 85 Per-share amounts, for preferred shares, 292 Persian Gulf, 290 Personal information, 113, 114 Personal relationships, with newsmakers and sources, 121 Petrobras, 158 Pfizer, 52, 164–165, 165f Philippines, names in, 279 Pie charts, 94, 95 Pitching stories, 40, 42–44 Place names, in India, 265–266 Plagiarism, 115–116 Pleaded, 290 Plural nouns, possessives for, 291 Poison pill defense, 276 Policy maker, policy making, policymaking, 248 Political action committee (PAC), 248 Political climate, 189, 191 Political labels, use of, 248

343

344

Index Politicking, 248 Polls, 97, 248, 290 POLY function, 121 Pope, references to, 290 Population size, adjusting data for, 100 Portfolio analysis (PORT) function, 202 Possessives, 290–291, 307 Posts, social media, 84–85 Power, of governments, 192–193 Precision, writing, 74–80 Preferred shares, 292 Premium, 276 Preparation: in Bloomberg Way, 2–3 for enterprise reporting, 39 for interviews, 27, 41 for radio/television appearances, 36 by reporters, 20 Prepositions, capitalization and use of, 292 Prescription drugs, 280 Press releases, 37, 170–172 Press summaries, 115 Pretax, 217 Pretax margin, 275 Previous year, references to, 321 Price: references to, 292 strike, 308 use of term, 273 Price-earnings ratio, 175, 177–178, 293 Price quotes, 292–293 Price target, 77, 293 Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), 236 Printing money, 293 Privacy, 113–114 Private equity firms, 294 Privately held companies, 294 Private placements, 294 Privatization, 294 Product names, 280 Profanity, 284

Professionalism, 84, 122 Profit(s): influence of commodity markets on, 147–148 language for reporting on, 157 operating, 287 operating income profit/loss, 158 use of term, 77, 294 Profit from continuing operations, 157 Profit from operations, 157 Profit margin, 175, 275 Profit-taking, 294–295 Pro forma financial statements, 294 Proof, in defamation claims, 111 Protection of anonymous sources, 25 Prudential Financial Inc., 295 Prudential Plc, 295 Published work, copyrights on, 121 Punctuation, with quotations, 297 Putin, Vladimir, 10–14, 14f, 63 Put options, 295 PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers), 236 Qaddafi, Moammar 70, 71, 74, 295 QoQ (quarter-on-quarter) statistics, 185 QR function, 200 QRM function, 200 Quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) statistics, 185 Question selection, for enterprise reporting, 38–40 QUICK function, 9, 210 QuickTake explainers, xii, 9 collaboration of other platforms and, 11 linked/touted content on, 35 in multiplatorm approach, 34 referring readers to, 75 terminal function for, 210 Quiet period, 179, 295 Quotations: about government bonds, 141

Index from anonymous sources, 25 attributions for, 83 from Bloomberg employees, 223 in currency market reports, 145, 146 from economists, 187 in four-paragraph lead, 68 good, 29 informal spellings in, 218 jargon in, 78 obscenities, profanities, and vulgarities in, 284 quotation marks for, 295–296 references to time in, 244 style guidelines for, 296–297 sustaining narratives with, 72 U.S. Cabinet departments in, 315–316 Quotation marks, 295–296, 305 Radio interviews, giving, 124. See also Bloomberg Radio Ranges, 283, 297 Range-bound, 297 Rankings, 263, 305 RATD function, 204, 225 Rates, 273, 297 Ratings: bond, 169, 224–225 credit, 224–225 television, 310 Ratings definitions (RATD) function, 204, 225 Rating point, 310 Ratios: current, 176–177 debt-to-equity, 176 dividend payout, 177 liquidity, 176–177 price-earnings, 175, 177–178, 293 style for numbers in, 282 Readers, errors reported by, 80 Realized gains and losses, 297 Recession, 298 Record, 298

345

Recording interviews, 41, 115 Re-elect, re-elected, re-electing, re-election, 248 Regional commodity markets (CMDS) function, 206 Regulatory issues, with mergers and acquisitions, 162 Related securities (RELS) function, 202 Relationship map (RMAP functions), 202 Relative Strength Index (RSI), 103– 104, 104f Relative value, 130. See also RV function Relative value by maturity (RVM) function, 204 RELS function, 202 Repayment rate, 169 Repos (repurchase agreements), 143 Reportedly, 299 Reporting, 15–48 on breaking news, 30–33 on companies, 154 enterprise, 37–42 and interviewing techniques, 26–29 learning a beat for, 15–21 multiplatform approach to, 33–37 and pitching stories to editors, 42–44 social media as tool for, 87–90 sourcing information in, 21–26 and using terminal for research, 44–48 Representative, 299 Republic of Congo, 237 Republic of Macedonia, 274 Repurchases, stock, 181 Repurchase agreements (repos), 143 Reputation, 107 Research functions, terminal, 208–210 Research portal (RES) function, 47, 208 Resistance price (resistance value), 308 Respect, for interview subjects, 123

346

Index Retail industry, terms from, 299–300 Retained earnings, 300 Return on equity (ROE), 176 Retweets, 85, 86f, 87f Revenue, 300, 314 Revenue per available room (revpar), 19, 300 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 253 RICH function, 46, 210 RIFR function, 211 RIF STR function, 211 Rights offering, 300 Ring fence, 300 Rival bids, in M&As, 162 RMAP function, 202 Roadshow, 179, 300 ROC function, 46 ROE (return on equity), 176 Roget’s Thesaurus, 79 Rounding, 289, 300–301 Royal titles, 313 RSI (Relative Strength Index), 103– 104, 104f RSI function, 104 Rumors, reporting on, 133, 301 RV function, 46, 130, 166, 172, 175, 202 RVM function, 204 RVR function, 202 S (words ending in), possessives for, 290, 291 S-1 filings, 179 SABMiller Plc, 32–33 Said, 301–302 “Said to” headlines, 55 Sales: company size in terms of, 174 same-store, 299–300 use of term, 300, 314 Sales per employee, 176 Same-store sales, 299–300

Sample products, 123 Samurai bonds, 268 San Francisco, California, 302 Saudi, 302 Saudi Binladin Group, 302 Scandinavian names, 216 Scheme, 302 School names, 316 Scoops: building momentum with, 23 learning from others’, 22–23 Scope, see Size and scope SDM function, 89 SEAG function, 200 Searches, in Bloomberg Terminal, 45–48, 207–208 Seasons, references to, 302 Seasonal trends (SEAG) function, 200 SEC, see Securities and Exchange Commission SECF function, 138 Section 501(c)(3), 118 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 16, 159, 295 Security: in lending, 302–303 of private information, 114 Security finder (SECF) function, 138 Security ownership, see HDS function Seem, 303 Self-Defense Forces, 303 Sell side, 132, 226 Semicolons, use of, 303 Semiconductor, 230 Senator, 303 Sensationalism, 76 Sentence length, 75 Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 303 Settle (legal term), 272 Shareholder meetings, buying shares to access, 119 Share point, 310 Shibor, 266

Index Short Interest (SI) function, 131 Short sales, 119, 303–304 Short squeeze, 304 Short term, short-term, 77, 318 Sibor, 267 Sidebars, using, 75 SI function, 131 Simplicity, 2 Since, 304 Singapore, names in, 279 Single digit, 318 Singular nouns, possessives for, 290 Size and scope: in company coverage, 174 information indicating, 304–305 for market coverage, 129 Slander, 110 Slim, Carlos, 305 Slim Domit, Carlos, 305 Small-cap, 318 Smartphones, 305 Smartwatches, 305 So-called, 296, 305 Social Data Manager, 89 Social media, 83–90 establishing presence on, 85–87 posts on, 84–85 as reporting tool, 87–90 Social Velocity Alerts, 89, 90f Sources. See also Third-party sources checking information from, 82 contact information of, 21 maintaining contact with, 22 names of, in First Word headlines, 57–58 personal relationships with, 121 tracking, 16–17 Sourcing information, 21–26, 42 Sovereign credit risk (SRSK) function, 204 Sovereign debt ownership (DEBT) function, 204 Soviet Union, 306

Speaker, 306 Speaking fees, 123 Specificity, in writing, 76–77, 112 Speculation, 36–37, 81 Speed fills, currency names in, 241 Spelling, 213, 218–219 Spending, by startups, 180 S&P Global Inc., 225 S&P Global Ratings, 169, 224, 225 Spinoff, spin off, 306 SPLC function, 170, 202 Spokesman, spokeswoman, 306 Spokespeople, interviews involving, 28 Sports metaphors, 306 Spread, 141, 167, 168, 306–307 SQUA function, 210 SRCH function, 143, 208 SRSK function, 204 Standalone headlines, 54–55 Standard deviation, 98–100 Standstill agreement, 307 Startup(s): coverage of, 179–180 use of term, 307 State-controlled companies, 307 State financial analysis (BEES) function, 206 State governing bodies, 259 State names, 307 State-owned companies, 307 STAT function, 187, 192, 200 Steelmaker, 307 Stibor, 267 Stockbroker, 307 Stockholder, 308 Stock market, see Equities market Stock ownership feature, see HDS function Stock price(s): calculating movements in, 138 in earnings coverage, 159 reasons for movements in, 136–137 reporting changes in, 172–173

347

348

Index Stock repurchases, 181 Stock splits, 307 Stock-trading statistics, rounding, 301 Stock transactions, valuation for, 163 Stock values, for would-be acquirers, 276 Stories. See also Narratives elements of good, 50–51 headlines that advance, 58–59 length of, 75 social media posts about, 85 subjects of, 25, 82, 108–109 Story builder (JOIN) function, 211 Story structure, 67–69 Strike price, 308 “String,” collecting, 17–18 Strong, 318 Style guide, 133–135, 213–321 STYL function, 213 Subheadlines, 54 Subjects of stories, 25, 82, 108–109 Subordinate clauses, 77 Subscriptions, paying for, 118 Subsidiary, 308 Sulfur, 308 Sumitomo Corp., 308 Superfund, 308 Superlatives, 61, 76, 129–130, 173 Super PACs, 248 Supervisory board, 224, 274, 308 Supply chain (SPLC) function, 202 Supply reports, 150 Support price (support value), 308 Supreme Court, 20, 183 Surprise(s), 50, 82 Surveys, 248, 290 Swap(s), 131 credit-default, 142–143, 240–241 currency, 243 interest-rate, 267 references to, 308–309 Swap rate, 309 Swedish names, 216 Swing, 309

Symbols, for currencies, 242 Syndicated loans, 143, 309 Syngenta AG, 160–161 Tables, order of items in, 309 Taiwan, names in, 279 Takeover, take over, 276 Taliban, 309 Target (legal term), 272 Target, price, 77, 293 Tax-loss carry-forward, 309 Tea Party, 310 Tech, 310 TECH function, 103 Technical analysis, 103–106, 138, 149– 150, 310 Technology, xii Telecom, 310 Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson (Ericsson AB), 249 Television interviews, giving, 124. See also Bloomberg Television Television ratings, 310 Temperature, scales for, 310 Tender, 310 Tender offer, 310 Tense, for stories, 79 Terrorism, terrorist, 311 Test products, 124 Texas, 147, 307 Thailand, names in, 279 The, in names, 235, 281, 311 Theme, 67 THES function, 79 Think, 222 Third-party sources: defamatory statements from, 110–111 fairness and reprinting stories from, 108–109 government coverage from, 195 headlines for stories with, 56 retweeting stories from, 87

Index Tibor, 267, 311 Time, references to, 245–246, 296, 321 Time of day, references to, 311 Time pegs, 43 Time period, checking, 82 The Times (newspaper), 312 Time stamps: for foreign-exchange reports, 145 for price quotes, 292–293 Time zones, 311–312 Titles: of compositions, 219, 295 of legislation, 238 for people, 215, 237–238, 312–313 TLIV function, 210 Toaster charting tools, 93–94 Tobacco industry, 88, 89f Ton, 313 Tone, of leads, 60 Tonne, 313 TOP function, 61, 210 TOPLive blogs, 35, 154, 210 TOP pages, 134, 245 Tory, 313 Touts, in stories, 34–35 Toys “R” Us Inc., 313 TPG Capital, 169–170 Tracking stock, 313 Trade bank, 253 Traded hands, 313 Trade flow (ECTR) function, 192, 207 Trade/quote recaps (QR function, QRM function), 200 Traders: correlation as tool for, 98 information from, 131–133 questions for, 132 Trading, trade, 314 Tranche, 314 Translations, of quotations, 297 Transparency: about errors, 80

to avoid defamation suits, 112 ethical standards on, 3 in market coverage, 133 on social media, 86 as tenet of Bloomberg Way, x, 183–184 Trashlines, of corrections, 83 Treasuries, 314 Treasury, 314 Trends: in commodity markets, 151 in currency market, 146–147 and debt reporting, 169 identifying, in economic coverage, 191–192 as leads, 61–62 TREN function, 136, 172, 202 Trillion, 300 Truth, as defense, 110, 111 TSE (Tokyo Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange), 314 Turnover, 300, 314 Tweet(s), 85, 87f, 314 TweetDeck, 87 Twitter, 84, 85 establishing presence on, 85–87 a reporting tool, 87–90 viewing posts about companies on, 172 Twitter filter, 89 TWTR function, 84, 89 Typhoons, 280–281 U.A.E. (United Arab Emirates), 314 UCNV function, 276, 277, 310 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 316 UN (United Nations), 316 Unanswerable questions, in live appearances, 36 Under, 316 Underweight (market segment), 288 Undocumented immigrants, 265 Unemployment, in Europe, 189, 190f

349

350

Index Unilever 316 United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), 314 United Kingdom: Brexit referendum in, 193–194 use of abbreviation for, 315 United Nations (UN), 316 United States: bond market in, 142 as Chinese trading partner, 192 housing market collapse in, 168 non-farm payrolls, 186 use of abbreviation for, 315 U.S. Cabinet departments, 315–316 U.S. college endowments (ENDO) function, 47, 209 U.S. Congress, terms related to, 237–239 U.S. dollars, 241 U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 253 U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 257 U.S. legislation (BILL) function, 206 U.S. Treasury bonds, 167, 168f Units of measure, 275–276, 310 University names, 316 Unnamed, 317 Unprofitable, 317 Unrealized gains and losses, 297 Updates, to market coverage, 134 Upside, 317 Upstream, 247 Up to, 317 Uridashi bonds, 268 USDA, 315, 316 Vague language, 317–318 Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., 155, 156 Valuation: and company coverage, 162–164, 174–177 defined, 318 for startups, 180

use of term, 77 Valuation multiples, 136 Value, of mergers and acquisitions, 162 Value comparisons, in M&As, 164–166, 165f Variables, confounding, 101 Vatican bank, 318 Venture capital, 179–180 Verb choice, 52, 61, 133 Verizon, 167, 168f Versus, 319 Vietnam, 279 VIEW function, 210 Visibility, 319 Visual aids, for television appearances, 37 Voice, for stories, 79–80 Volatility, 265, 319 Volcker Rule, 319 Volume, 319 Vulgarities, 284 VW (Volkswagen AG), 53 Wall Street, 319–320 Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 153–154, 174, 319 Washington, D.C., 320 Watchlist analytics (WATC) function, 202 WBF function, 129, 205 WB function, 45, 129, 140, 205 WCAP function, 203 WCDM function, 205 WCDS function, 205 WCR function, 129, 205 WCRS function, 129, 144, 205 WDR function, 192, 207 Weak, 318 Weather, in commodity coverage, 151 Web-related terms, 320 Websites, unauthorized access to, 115 Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 79, 213

Index WEIB function, 203 WEIF function, 129, 203 WEI function, 45, 129, 203 WEIS function, 129, 203 The West, 299 Western Europe, 299 West Texas Intermediate, 285 Whether, 265 Whistle-blower, 272 Widen, 320 Winkler, Matt, ix–xii, 1, 67 Winter storms, names of, 320 WIRP function, 192, 207 Woman, women, 255 Word choice, 74. See also Language Word echoes, 79 WORD function, 79 Workforce, 320 World bond futures (WBF) function, 129, 205 World bonds function, see WB function World CDS monitor (WCDS) function, 205 World countries debt monitor (WCDM) function, 205 World currency ranker, see WCRS function World currency rates (WCR) function, 129, 205 World deposit rates (WDR) function, 192, 207 World economic statistics (ECST), 185, 207 World equity indexes, see WEI function World equity index futures (WEIF) function, 129, 203 World equity index rankings (WEIS) function, 129, 203 World equity index ratios (WPE), 175, 203

World inflation breakeven rates (ILBE) function, 207 World interest rate probability (WIRP) function, 192, 207 World market capitalization (WCAP) function, 203 World volume monitor (WVM) function, 203 Worry, worried, worries, 222, 320 WPE function, 175, 203 Writ, 272 Writedown, write down, 321 Writing guidelines, 49–90 and assembling a narrative, 69–74 and corrections, 80–83 for debt coverage, 169–170 for headlines, 50–59 for improving precision and brevity, 74–80 for lead paragraphs, 60–65, 67–69 for nut paragraphs, 65–68 on providing details, 72–73 for quotations, 72 for social media, 83–90 on using numbers, 73–74 WVM function, 203 XDF function, 205 Xi Jinping, 62, 161, 195, 279 Yangon, Myanmar, 278 Yankee bonds, 268 Year earlier, 321 Yellen, Janet, 229 Yield, 138, 139, 167 Zero-coupon bonds, 321 Zeroes, 301, 311 Zip Code and Post Office Directory, 213

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