I have an error message in Bloomberg Excel: Review or Daily Capacity

Last Updated: 12 Mar 2024 Views: 12966 (After reading, tell us below if this answer was helpful)

If you are downloading Bloomberg data using its Excel add-in, you may see one of these error messages instead of the data you requested:

These messages show that a Bloomberg data download limit (cap) has been exceeded.

'#N/A Daily Capacity': There is a daily limit of 500,000 hits which resets at midnight each day, for each Bloomberg terminal. A hit is defined as a security and field combination: for example, the query =BDP("AAPL US Equity", "PX_LAST") constitutes one hit, each time the sheet is refreshed.
'#N/A Review': There is a monthly limit which resets on the first of the month, for each Bloomberg terminal. Bloomberg do not reveal the precise details for when this limit will be reached, there is no warning when you are close and the error message is cryptic.
'#N/A Limit: Real-time': There is a limit of 3,500 concurrent real-time security subscriptions/hits.

To test if the limit has been reached: open the Bloomberg terminal, log in, then open a new Excel workbook and paste in the following formula:

=BDP("AAPL US Equity", "PX_LAST")

If you get one of the above error messages, you've reached a limit. If you get a number, it worked.

There are a few tips we can offer to reduce the risk of tripping the download limits which affect everyone at Manchester.

Use the regular Bloomberg terminal rather than Excel wherever possible (there is no download limit within the terminal, though there are other restrictions on dates, number of rows, and so on).
Use the Worksheet (W<GO>) function in the Bloomberg terminal, this is like a spreadsheet but without download limits.
Use the BQL functions in Excel. Quoting: "Bloomberg Query Language lets you screen, aggregate, backtest, and run statistical analysis on a large security list with a single query. For example, instead of downloading 1,000 prices and then averaging them in your spreadsheet, you can use BQL to download just the average, saving you 999 hits." We have an online resource for BQL.
Do not download data on more securities and fields than you really need.
Disable any automatic updates or refreshes for Bloomberg functions, especially in any background sheets.
Once you have the data you need, copy it then paste-as-values or save as CSV to make you don't download the same thing more than once.
Staff can request the loan of a dedicated Bloomberg laptop.
If you still need to download a lot of data, do so at the end of the calendar month.
Contact us for further advice.

You may also consider other databases than Bloomberg.