Bloomberg
Bloomberg is one of the big players in the financial information/ media arena. Unlike Yahoo!, for example, that has its fingers in as many pies as it can think of, Bloomberg focuses solely on financial markets and finance in general.
Also unlike Yahoo!, Bloomberg is a massive player offline too. There are Bloomberg TV channels, radio and print magazines.
With such a high “pedigree” the level of services that the website offers for currency conversion and trading is exceptional.
You can see snap shots of currency cross rates by going to the currency section of “market data”. You can see a snap-shot of USD cross rates by going to the world currency section of the same part.
Currency conversion is not the only calculation it is possible to do using the Bloomberg site. The calculators page lists more than 30 separate calculators that allow visitors to calculate everything from tax to stock options.
The currency calculator itself is very easy to use. The page is relatively uncluttered and neatly presented, with a nice big area taken up by the calculator itself. Plenty of other sites have all kinds of bells and whistles and flashy advertising to distract you, but not this one. It's all there, it's just less intrusive.
The calculator has more than 200 currencies and metals to choose from. Under the title Convert there is a drop-down list of currencies. Select which currency you wish to convert from here.
Each currency is listed with its country name (expressed possessively: e.g. Thai Baht instead of Thailand Baht) and the 3 letter international currency code is displayed after the name so that you can easily tell, for example, the Thai Baht Onshore Spot (THO) from the regular Thai Baht (THB).
If you want to convert a specific amount you should enter that number in to the box titled “Amount”. E.g. If you wish to convert $267 USD into something else, this is where you should type in 267. Do not enter any currency symbol into the Amount box.
Next you should choose the destination currency by selecting one of the currencies form the drop down list titled “Into”. The currencies here match the currencies in the other drop-down list.
Finally click on the “Calculate” button to see the result. The result is displayed just at the bottom of the calculator on the same page. It appears in the format:
268 US Dollars (USD) = XX Thai Baht (THB)
The inverse rate is not listed and the actual exchange rate used to calculate the result is not displayed. This is a bit disappointing as the exchange rate is one of the key pieces to the puzzle and there can be little reason for leaving it out.
Obviously you can see the rates by performing the same calculation with 1 in the “amount” box.
Overall Bloomberg has a lot going for it for anyone wishing to find useful currency conversion features. Unfortunately the results of the conversion calculation were a bit over simplified – most people will be happier with more information, on balance there is a lot of good here, so it still gets 4 stars.
Rating (out of 5 stars):
- 4 Stars
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/invest/calculators/currency.html