HWS News
10 September 2026 Wall Street Technology Arrives at HWS
New Bloomberg Terminals put real-time financial data, professional analytics and a $1 million global trading challenge in students’ hands.
Twelve Bloomberg Terminals arriving at HWS this fall will enable students to work on the same financial system investment bankers, portfolio managers and analysts use daily. With it, they will be able to make trades, research companies and securities and build financial models to make the best-informed investment decisions they can.
The Terminals are made possible by the new Melly Institute for Business, Innovation and Leadership, established through a historic $70 million gift from Trustee Chair Emeritus L. Thomas Melly ’52, L.H.D. ’02 and Judith Hershey Melly L.H.D. ’16. The Mellys’ gift expands opportunities across departments, blending a liberal arts education with essential skills in business, innovation and leadership.
The Bloomberg Terminal is an industry standard in finance. By learning the system at HWS, students can arrive at internships and first jobs already knowing how to use it to track live pricing, quotes and trading volume across global markets.
On Friday, Sept. 11, Bloomberg Relationship Manager Kelsie Worth ’22 will be on campus to discuss her own path to Bloomberg and demonstrate the Bloomberg Terminal system. She will be in the Barron Computer Lab in the Warren Hunting Smith Library from 2 to 3 p.m.
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Worth is part of a growing HWS connection to Bloomberg, a global financial software, data and media company. Economics majors Tru Styles ’27 and Conor Lally ’27 spent the summer as Analytics & Sales interns at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York City. They trained across equities, fixed income, foreign exchange and private markets while learning how clients use the Terminal.
This fall they return to campus as Melly Fellows to show their peers how to use the system.
Assistant Professor of Business Management and Entrepreneurship Shanxiang Yang is integrating Bloomberg Terminals into his courses. In a corporate finance group project, Yang says Bloomberg data and analytics will be used to analyze corporate governance, investment and financing decisions.
He will also require students to complete Bloomberg Finance Fundamentals, a certification covering investing, risk and portfolio management.
The Bloomberg Terminals arrive as other pieces of the Melly Institute come online. Yang and Assistant Professor Bryan Adams join HWS this fall as Melly Endowed Chairs, while Pamela Young began work in August as the Institute’s executive director. The first floor of Williams Hall meanwhile is being renovated to bring the Institute’s faculty, students and programs together in a permanent home.
Young says Bloomberg Terminals give faculty new ways to create applied, data-informed learning experiences for students.
“Instructors can integrate real-time market data, company research, economic indicators, financial news and professional analytics into courses and assignments, helping students connect academic concepts to current business and financial decision-making,” she says.
To bridge the gap between classroom and office use, Bloomberg holds a Global Trading Challenge annually.
In it, teams of between two and five students use Bloomberg Terminals to manage a $1 million virtual portfolio, competing against more than 2,000 teams worldwide. For one month, they must define market assumptions, develop an investment strategy for their portfolio and execute trades within a closed network to compete for the highest time-weighted return relative to the Bloomberg World Large, Mid & Small Cap Price Return Index (WLS Index).
Yang says the competition requires students to draw on both their financial analysis skills and their ability to work together.
“To succeed, students will need to apply the rigorous academic training, critical thinking and independent rationale they have developed at HWS to make investment decisions based on finding and analyzing information about the macroeconomy, financial markets, industries and individual securities,” Yang says.
Teams must register by Oct. 4 for the challenge, which runs from Oct. 12 to Nov. 13.
For winners announced Nov. 20, prizes include an iPad Pro for each team member and faculty advisor, networking opportunities with Bloomberg recruiting and certificates for the participants and their college.
Beyond coursework and competition, students can use the Terminals to earn Bloomberg professional certifications, including Bloomberg Market Concepts, which Associate Professor of Economics H. Evren Damar is using in his course "Money & Financial Markets."
The 12 Terminals will be installed temporarily in the library, where students can use them until the Melly Institute’s permanent home opens in Williams Hall. There, the Terminals will have a dedicated Bloomberg Lab.
Top: Economics majors Tru Styles ’27 and Conor Lally ’27 spent the summer at Bloomberg, a privately held financial, software, data and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
