Math Business and Accounting Finance Lab
The Math Business and Accounting Finance Lab is located in MC-3004. It is open Monday through Friday from 9:00am - 4:30pm.
Inside you will find 26 Windows PCs. 20 machines are for the Capital IQ, Rotman Interactive trader and other Math related apps. The other 6 are for Bloomberg software.
Capital IQ
About
Capital IQ is a web and Excel based financial application.
The web portal offers various software and data feeds to advisory firms, banks, corporations, investment managers, private equity funds, universities, and more, providing overall market awareness and investment analysis audiences can use to inform their investment strategies.
The Excel plug-in allows you to import financial, market and company data along with comp sets, filings, saved screens and other information.
How to connect
Capital IQ access is controlled by a Nexus security group. It is available to students, faculty, researchers, and staff for non-commercial academic research on a request basis. The grad students taking some of the specific Math Business courses are automatically added to the Active IQ allowed group.
The finance lab PCs in MC3004 have a shortcut on the desktop, and the Excel plug-in already installed.
Use your @uwaterloo.ca email address for authentication.
Excel Plug-In Installation: Login to your Capital IQ account using above URL and then select Downloads from the left pane, located in My Profile section. Download the file, run it, and follow the instructions.
Bloomberg
About
Bloomberg provides both historical and real-time financial market and economic data, covering all sectors worldwide. It also features analytics, company financials, news, and customizable charting.
The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which users can monitor and analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform. It was developed by employees working for businessman Michael Bloomberg. The system also provides news, price quotes, and messaging across its proprietary secure network. It is well known among the financial community for its black interface, which has become a recognizable trait of the service.
A welcome video going through the Bloomberg terminal can be found by going to https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/solution/welcome-to-the-terminal/.
How to Use
You will need to have a Bloomberg account to use Bloomberg terminal.
First time users must register with Bloomberg and create a personalized login and password.
- Login to Bloomberg terminal using your Nexus account.
- Launch Bloomberg app
- At the login prompt enter your account name and password. If you don’t have account name and you are a first-time user then click on link that says create a new login and complete the registration form. You will receive a validation code in an email. Complete the validation to complete the account creation process. Remember your account name and password.
Bloomberg’s education portal can be found at https://portal.bloombergforeducation.com/sign_up.
Bloomberg for Education offers a series of credentials that will expand your knowledge and can strengthen your job applications. These courses provide an interactive way to explore different areas of finance.
Please note that to gain access to the training you must physically be using one of Bloomberg terminals in the Math Business and Accounting Finance Lab (MC-3004).
Certificates available include…
- Bloomberg Finance Fundamentals
- Bloomberg Market Concepts
- Environmental Social Governance
When you complete each program you will receive a certificate of completion that you can promote on your resume, CV, and social media.
To access the training please…
- Run BCER on the blue command line
- On the left corner select "Log in"
- Select “Login with SSO”
- The Education portal should launch on the web browser (but if you run into technical issues please email us at mathbus@uwaterloo.ca for assistance.
Rotman Interactive Trader – RIT
The RIT simulation-based-learning product includes the RIT Market Simulator (an order-matching platform which allows users to transact financial securities with each other on a real-time basis) plus a sequence of RIT Decision Cases which focus on specific decision tasks associated with financial securities, market dynamics, and investment or risk management strategies.
The RIT Decision Cases are designed to be run using multiple iterations which implement a range of potential scenarios. The same strategy can yield different results depending on the final realization of the scenario.
RIT Client
The finance lab machines in MC-3004 already have a link on desktop which lets users to download and install application on the machine. Once it is installed, it checks for updates at launch.
The site https://inside.rotman.utoronto.ca/financelab/rit/ has all the documentation and software downloads. The client software can be installed on any Windows based machine.
RIT Server
The server software is a licensed product. We already have it installed on a virtual server and it can be accessed by instructor by login into the server remotely using Remote Desktop Client from any Windows or Mac machine.
Instructors will run the RIT Server Application that will allow them to choose and load the simulation case, modify the case parameters if they so wish, exercise full control of the variables governing the market, monitor the students’ decisions in real time and (optionally) push out performance reports at the end of each iteration.
The server application comes with many custom case files that allows student to practice different RIT cases.
Students will use the RIT Client Application to connect to the RIT Server and act as participants in the simulated market; using the information in the relevant case brief and their decision model – which applies the relevant theory – to guide their decisions.
The server creates and manages a centralized limit order book which is broadcast in real-time to all connected users.
Instructor can run multiple simulation at a time if desired so by launching the server application multiple time and changing the port on it e.g. 10001 (the default is 10000).
Users can then interact with the order books by submitting various types of orders.
Server name: mathritserver.math.uwaterloo.ca
Remote access: contact Math Business (mathbus@uwaterloo.ca) for remote access permission
RIT documents and case files on server: C:\RIT2.0_Release_Package
On client side configuration: Server:mathritserver.math.uwaterloo.ca, Port: 10000 (change if instructor provides different port)
Users can also connect to RIT demonstration server as here: https://inside.rotman.utoronto.ca/financelab/demo/
Technical Issues or Questions?
Please contact Math Business and Accounting directly at mathbus@uwaterloo.ca.
If there is an issue with one of the computers may you please include the user id and barcode of the computer (they are listed on stickers on the central processing unit (CPU) of each machine).