Before comparing vendors or requesting a quote, write down what the feed needs to let you study. News products can differ in coverage, structured fields, timing, historical access and permitted use. The phrase “real-time API” alone is too broad to define a research requirement or a price.
Define what you are trying to observe
Start with a one-sentence research question and a short list of example events. A study of how corporate announcements travel through markets may need different fields from a project about economic releases or public narrative. Name the geography, languages, organizations or instruments, and the period you hope to cover.
Decide whether you need full text, headlines, structured event data, analytics or a combination. Preserve three to five sample events that would make a product useful to your question. Ask a specialist whether those examples, their source metadata and any derived fields are included in the proposed feed.
Match the catalogue to the question
Bloomberg describes Event-Driven Feeds as machine-readable real-time data and lists distinct areas including textual news, news analytics, global macroeconomic indicators (ECO), EcoNext, a corporate events calendar (EVTS) and a corporate actions calendar (CACS). These are useful starting categories for a discussion, not a statement that any one package contains a particular item your research needs. Confirm definitions, examples, coverage and availability with Bloomberg.
Ask how each candidate feed identifies companies, people, instruments and topics; which languages and markets are covered; and whether metadata, sentiment or other analytics are separate components. The fields and definitions matter as much as the headline product name. Product and delivery details may depend on the specific entitlement and arrangement.
Treat timing and history as requirements
Ask which timestamps describe publication, source events, vendor distribution and your receipt of a message. Find out how corrections, duplicate items, late arrivals and replayed events are represented. For historical analysis, ask whether an archive is available, what period it covers, how the data changes over time and whether it preserves the versions researchers would have seen at the time.
A provider’s description of real-time distribution does not by itself give you a latency commitment for your proposed setup. Ask which service measures apply to your entitlement and delivery route, and what operational information is available for a technical evaluation.
Ask about permitted use in writing
Explain the intended activity clearly: an internal research prototype, a presentation, a public report or a customer-facing product are different contexts to raise with the provider. Ask which people and environments may access the data, what can be stored, what can be displayed or quoted, and whether derived outputs may be shared or retained after a trial ends.
Licence terms differ by product and arrangement. This checklist is not legal advice and does not describe Bloomberg’s terms. Ask the relevant provider contact to confirm applicable permissions, restrictions, retention and attribution requirements for your particular use before obtaining or displaying any data.
Make a quote comparable
Request a written estimate for a named scope and ask the provider to list its assumptions. Include feed categories, markets, languages, company or instrument universe, number of users, environments, delivery route, historical period, expected volume and support requirements. Ask about any setup or onboarding charge, recurring charge, minimum term, evaluation period, usage limits, optional services, renewal terms and how a scope change affects the quote.
There is no defensible universal price for a service from the product label alone. Describe the buying organisation and intended use accurately, ask whether an evaluation route exists, and request an itemised estimate for the smallest viable scope. Do not assume a discount, free access or a published price; ask the provider directly.
Keep a decision record
Summarize the final response in a small comparison sheet: exact products and fields, geographic and language coverage, history, delivery, service commitments, permitted uses, quoted charges, term and open questions. Mark anything that is still unconfirmed. A second reviewer should be able to see why the proposed data is relevant and what the quoted amount covers.
If live data access is not available or is outside the project budget, the research question may still be answerable with public releases, historical public documents or a smaller sample. Change the method openly; do not imply that a simulated or public-data exercise used a licensed real-time feed.
Describe the question, coverage, use, delivery and time period first. Then ask the provider to quote that exact scope and to identify its assumptions.
Sources and further reading
An original methodological perspective from the Geteridian research concept. This article is educational and does not provide investment recommendations or report live market data.
