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I was trying to build a reverse VLOOKUP (searching from the bottom instead of the top) to pull the most recent bond prices we had seen from another spreadsheet that was a few hundred thousand rows long. Bonds were entered into that sequentially as they were seen and I couldn't reorder it. I found a way using a COUNTIF held within a vector array and it amazingly worked on the first bond. I pulled it down five or six (out of the ~300 I needed) rows to see how it would process and it brought that computer to it's god drat knees. I have never seen excel sit on "Processing 1%" for minutes before but needless to say I ctrl+break'd that and figured out a new way. Array functions be crazy.
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Sep 12, 2013 01:07
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if it doesn't have spaces in the list of data, indirect("A"&count(A:A)) will do that. Modify the A's to B's if it's column B, etc.
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Sep 12, 2013 11:07
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Crooz posted:I was trying to build a reverse VLOOKUP (searching from the bottom instead of the top) to pull the most recent bond prices we had seen from another spreadsheet that was a few hundred thousand rows long. Bonds were entered into that sequentially as they were seen and I couldn't reorder it. Why can't you reorder the reference sheet? Throw it into access, add a sequential primary key, reorder on that key, export back to excel, and bob's your uncle you can do ordinary vlookups now. ITT excel chat. Guess the thread title finally got literal
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Sep 12, 2013 15:07
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So - I figure this is a good place to post this. Call me crazy, as you all better know than me.. but I really am interested in finance/investment banking. I graduated in 2012 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. Got a job out of college, and quickly realized that I need to do more than just collect my paycheck every week to have the means to afford my lifestyle. I'm not necessarily a big spender. I just like nice things, and I'm more of someone that believes that living below your means is a pipe dream in the USA (at least, for me) and that if you want something above your means, you respond by finding a way to afford it. Anyhow, I quickly started reading into personal finance, investing, and eventually day trading. A friend of mine was day trading options and opened me up into it. 2 lesson programs and numerous books and websites read later, I decided playing the market with options with some money I had saved up to dedicate completely to the market. I quickly realized how much I loved the idea of the market. I love the analytics, I love the pace, and I really really like money. That being said - I took a big loss on an AAPL short one day since my broker bugged out and over-purchased options contracts, emptying my entire portfolio. I got out and saved some face, but I almost lost everything. I had to take a backseat from the market for a while. In the meantime, I stared a side online business, and that has been taking my time up besides my fulltime job as a project engineer for an electrical contracting firm. I live in NY, and I work in the financial district. I'm surrounded by the market and I really have a strong interest in working in investment banking/hedge funds/finance. Although I don't have a degree in it, I remember hearing from professors that the Electrical Engineering degree is a diverse degree in that a lot of other industries can benefit from an engineer's knack for problem solving, math, and strengths for analyzing data and converting it into something that works. The problem is, I'd have no idea where the hell to start. I don't really have any links into the industry (blue collar family) and didn't have any recruits come to my school for any of that. (I went to a good engineering college, but not sure they were very popular for business). Am I just getting jaded by the glamorous facade of Wall St? Am I really, really built for working in the industry? Do I even have a chance in my position, and if so, how? These are all questions that I'm asking myself. Any insight would be awesome. Tie all of this in with the job I have now that is pulling the life out of me, and it's recipe for me being incredibly anxious an determined to look to see if the grass is any greener on the other side.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:47
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DirtyTalk posted:
You should be compensated for this
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Sep 12, 2013 17:15
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DirtyTalk posted:
If you have no connections, you could always just straight up apply to smaller/boutique shops that need analysts/excel monkeys. Your degree will have prepared you for that just fine. Those will be about a two-year stint before any doors really start to open. But if you're lucky you'll already have an in on the PE side, which is a lot of people's wet dream. That's the path I nearly took, and it seemed viable enough (but loving hell no was I going to work in Stamford). Failing that, start thinking about an MBA right now.
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Sep 12, 2013 18:16
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fougera posted:You should be compensated for this It wasn't a human broker. I had just switched from eTrade to Thinkorswim and there was a weird quirk where if you switched from your buy screen, to your chart screen, and back to the buy screen again, it would reset the share count to a default value ( which happened to be a very high number ). Ultimately, I can't blame anyone besides myself for not checking the share count before I sent the order, and that's why they couldn't do anything about it. To me it was a bug with the program, but they insisted otherwise. Whatever the case, it was a very very very expensive lesson.
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Sep 12, 2013 18:24
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But to your actual question, let me get this straight: you have a startup going, contract work, and an engineering degree and you want to go into finance? Why? You seem enamored by money, which is a real stupid reason to make the change. In fact a lot of people in finance WISH they had an engineering degree + the creativity to do a startup, kill it and become the next [insert Silicon Valley star]. In fact, my job covering the tech sector involves sucking their dicks for business. It sounds like you don't know what you actually want to do, you mention your brief trading experience but this thread largely consists of bankers. I would be careful wasting your energy on making this kind of transition. There are much better ways to leverage your experience so far. fougera fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 19:23
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fougera posted:But to your actual question, let me get this straight: you have a startup going, contract work, and an engineering degree and you want to go into finance? Why? Well my side business isn't really so much of a startup. It's more of affiliate marketing type work. It's a much larger scale than the usual bullshit you see online (Make $2398.21 per week! - Bullshit.) Regardless, my bread and butter is in engineering. But I always saw myself in a much more professional position than I am now. Engineering (at least the kind I'm doing) is far from what I like to do. I guess what I'm looking to do is somehow apply my technical skills to the financial industry and use that to eventually become a successful business person. I don't picture myself being a worker bee down the line that I am currently seeing now in my company. Again, I went out on a whim posting it here. I know that this isn't a trading thread, but I just referenced my trading as my loose insight into the financial industry.
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Sep 12, 2013 21:00
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tolerabletariff posted:I've actually never paid more than $850 for a suit, maybe $1000 all-in with tailoring. You should buy some long sleeve suits.
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Sep 12, 2013 21:24
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DirtyTalk posted:I guess what I'm looking to do is somehow apply my technical skills to the financial industry and use that to eventually become a successful business person. I don't picture myself being a worker bee down the line that I am currently seeing now in my company. Again, I went out on a whim posting it here. I know that this isn't a trading thread, but I just referenced my trading as my loose insight into the financial industry. The good news for you is there are a lot of places that will interview pretty much anyone who walks through the door. There are a bunch of books on quant/trader interview questions (Mark Joshi is as good a point to start as any), just google up some titles and spend a couple of months going over them. Also during that time, keep a close eye on the news and make a list of all the funds you see mentioned, and do some digging to find others. As someone else said there are a lot of smaller places that are not as famous, but you can probably find one that has a place for someone engaged and enthusiastic. Once you have done a bit of prep, go through your list and talk to anyone who will speak with you. Also keep trading, even if you don't do spectacularly, it shows that you can turn up day after day and put your money on the line which does count for something. Just keep some perspective that trading at an individual/retail level can be very different from institutional or the business of trading, you don't want to come across as arrogant even if you do well.
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Sep 13, 2013 01:15
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unixbeard posted:The good news for you is there are a lot of places that will interview pretty much anyone who walks through the door. There are a bunch of books on quant/trader interview questions (Mark Joshi is as good a point to start as any), just google up some titles and spend a couple of months going over them. Also during that time, keep a close eye on the news and make a list of all the funds you see mentioned, and do some digging to find others. As someone else said there are a lot of smaller places that are not as famous, but you can probably find one that has a place for someone engaged and enthusiastic. Once you have done a bit of prep, go through your list and talk to anyone who will speak with you. Also keep trading, even if you don't do spectacularly, it shows that you can turn up day after day and put your money on the line which does count for something. Just keep some perspective that trading at an individual/retail level can be very different from institutional or the business of trading, you don't want to come across as arrogant even if you do well. Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely look for books like this. Along with the websites mentioned in the OP, I think I can get enough supplemental reading done to see if this is for me before I fire on some interviews. I'm going to continue following this thread as well in the meantime.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:25
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Another option is to keep your day job and just trade on your own. You don't need to day trade to find success (imo you are better off sticking to higher time frames). There are a few considerations 1) Having a stable job with regular income takes off a lot of performance pressure. Your trading profits are gravy. 2) Working for a financial company will probably put restrictions on what you can do with your personal account. And the restrictions are usually pretty extreme, entire asset classes off limits, approval required for every trade, minimum holding periods, you must use the in house or company approved broker, etc. 3) You're probably not going to be trading right off the bat in your new role, and even if you are you will probably focus on a very specific set of instruments. So if you like trading there is certainly a case for staying independent.
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Sep 13, 2013 06:14
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bam thwok posted:Why can't you reorder the reference sheet? Throw it into access, add a sequential primary key, reorder on that key, export back to excel, and bob's your uncle you can do ordinary vlookups now. The reference sheet is constantly updated (by someone else, I don't control it) throughout the day everyday and it needs to pull the latest. Maybe I don't totally understand what you're saying cause gently caress if I really "get" Access. nam taf posted:if it doesn't have spaces in the list of data, indirect("A"&count(A:A)) will do that. This would only work if I wanted the last entry of the column. This is a sheet that has every instance (price/quote) of every bond we see. My formula needs to pull the latest instance of a specific bond (for a few hundred bonds) from that. Anyway, I kinda went with a way easier version of the top option: writing a macro to pull and paste values and then reorder the static data to vlookup on locally. Easy but so inelegant...
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Sep 14, 2013 04:02
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Wait can we take a step back for a moment and go back to the fact that this guy's thought process is literally "I like to spend money. Finance dudes, whatever they do - trade or something - make a lot of money. I should be a finance guy!" You will burn out in about one week in this industry if thats why you go into it.
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Sep 14, 2013 04:03
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Why else would anyone subject themselves to 100 hour work weeks if not mainly for money?
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Sep 14, 2013 09:25
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Arakan posted:Why else would anyone subject themselves to 100 hour work weeks if not mainly for money? That's the thing - all of the sudden at 5am when you've slept a combined 10 hours in the past 3 days and are trying to figure out what exactly your VP meant on a turn of an 80 page deck that needs to print in two hours $130k a year out of college doesn't seem worth it any more versus your buddies at GE making $65k working 40 hours a week unless you really loving love winning/executing deals and have dreams of being a deal maker either on the buy or sell-side some day.
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Sep 15, 2013 05:40
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Swingline posted:Wait can we take a step back for a moment and go back to the fact that this guy's thought process is literally "I like to spend money. Finance dudes, whatever they do - trade or something - make a lot of money. I should be a finance guy!" I mean, that's not really it at all. I've heard that a lot of funds are using computer science/computer engineering majors (which is a subsect of electrical engineering - my degree) for automation and programing. I think that I could thrive in a fast paced atmosphere, while still using my engineering skills. It's a step up in excitement/stress from what I do on my present day to day. Yes, I agree with you if I was just jumping into it due to money, I would fail. But that's not my case.
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Sep 15, 2013 15:58
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DirtyTalk posted:I mean, that's not really it at all. You have no focus. In your post you say that you love money and living above your means. Here is a wakeup call for you, your first few years you will be working 100+ hours a week so the ability to afford those nice things will be greatly diminished. You will work at the whim of your MD which in many cases means 20 hours a day. You say that you find ways to afford the lifestyle. Well here is another wake up call. Your little side businesses will have to fall by the wayside when you start working 100+ hours a week. Your best bet is to stop playing around with all the little side stuff and focus on one thing. Chances are you will move up your ladder faster when you get that focus.
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Sep 15, 2013 18:41
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evilwaldo posted:You have no focus. Excuse me for being 23 and having trouble finding something to focus on. I'm doing fine, but I'm still looking for something that I will thrive in. Can't really ever find that if I don't look. I can just sit and "focus" on my engineering job now, but how much of a focus is it if I really don't see myself doing it into the future? I'm doing construction now, perhaps I will operate better in a more tech/computer based environment? Well - I wouldn't know if I didn't look. Not really sure how else to respond to what you said.
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Sep 16, 2013 02:15
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I have literally never met anyone in finance whose motivation wasn't money. There's a myriad of reasons why you should think twice before entering this field but the trope that financial motivation is a cancer to this business is tired. It's the sole reason it exists. Also I just found out my on-site to one of our portfolio companies might get switched from Tokyo to Bangalore. I'm going to loving kill myself.
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Sep 16, 2013 14:06
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Thoogsby posted:I have literally never met anyone in finance whose motivation wasn't money. There's a myriad of reasons why you should think twice before entering this field but the trope that financial motivation is a cancer to this business is tired. It's the sole reason it exists. I left law practice because I absolutely love finance. And no, I did not hate the law: I just didn't love it, and there is a difference. In doing so, I took a hefty financial cut. Despite that, I am still thrilled with my decision. I'm happy to go to work everyday. I couldn't say that practicing law.
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Sep 19, 2013 08:25
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I'm a little bit confused! I somehow ended up with a bunch of interviews at various I banking places. I don't have a very serious quant or finance background and was pretty open about this. So I have a couple questions. First: I don't think I want to do I banking long term, but I would like ~2 years of business experience somewhere which will give my résumé a solid boost and let me go on to other things. Which firms will do this? A few of them are within the top 10-25 range on Vault -- does that generally mean they will be a good brand name to have? They aren't Goldman or whatever, but I don't know how quickly prestige drops off. Some of the others seem to be very competent but less well known boutiques -- 20-50 people, about half of which used to have big positions at very famous banks. Are these at all worthwhile for résumé building? I don't really care about compensation (actually it looks like small firms pay more anyways), but I do not want to waste two years doing something which just makes me look like an also-ran. I'd really like to end up either at a start up or a consultancy after this time. Second: What the gently caress does an interview like this even entail? How much of a crash course in finance do I need to give myself in the next week? They seem open to non-finance (apparently), but then again, I have no idea what this poo poo entails. Basically I'm trying to figure out how much time I should take off from doing case interviews to give myself an OK shot, and if doing so is even worth it at all. Sorry if this seems shallow or stupid, I really know very little about this stuff.
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Sep 19, 2013 08:52
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semicolonsrock posted:I'm a little bit confused! I somehow ended up with a bunch of interviews at various I banking places. I don't have a very serious quant or finance background and was pretty open about this. So I have a couple questions. If you don't want to do banking or something with related skills, then the prestige factor is critical, and yes it drops off very quickly. (edit) for industry changes, since smaller banks or boutique shops are likely to be well-known among the financerati, but probably not anyone in different businesses altogether. Everyone knows what it means for you to have spent two years at JP Morgan, but not everyone will know what it means that you spent two years at XXXXX Capital Management Partners (/edit) quote:Second: What the gently caress does an interview like this even entail? How much of a crash course in finance do I need to give myself in the next week? They seem open to non-finance (apparently), but then again, I have no idea what this poo poo entails. You should give yourself a crash course. Every finance-related interview I ever went on, even with my non-finance degree (Public policy) and their openness to people with those non-traditional backgrounds, I was quizzed on simple things like "Why can't past gains predict future performance?" through questions that I found challenging like "Can you give me two examples of a situation where the price of a bond will not move in the opposite direction of interest rates?". They want to test your knowledge (even if it's meager), but more importantly they want to gauge your interest to see if you actually like and think about these things, or if you, for example, just want to slog away for two years to get their firm's name on a line-item on your resume. It will show. Study up. bam thwok fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 15:56
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semicolonsrock posted:
I can speak to the small firm opportunity ( I work at a 50 person PE firm) . You can think of the huge well know firms (Blackstone, Goldman etc..) as the Harvards and Whartons of the world. Working at one of those places will open doors, you will get interviews and people will give you the benefit of the doubt as far as being a finance badass. Small firms however have their own benefits: Work in multiple areas Work on deals sooner Greater exposure to executives Opportunity to rise quickly Work life balance is a little better after a few years... maybe Pay is still great Better chance to get points on the deals Small firms negatives: Less prestige transfer to different industries Less stability of dealflow can be a feast of famine of activity Cap on compensation due to smaller asset base (Massive shops have a much bigger pie to cut up) Excel models only smell slightly of cedar, not mahogany  Either way you are going to be worked hard large or small firm, you will not be wasting two years, you can use that time to get some real deal experience which will give you experience and a track record to use in consulting or that start-up you want. Also you will have some great connections
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Sep 19, 2013 16:30
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J4Gently posted:I can speak to the small firm opportunity ( I work at a 50 person PE firm) . Thanks, this was really helpful (as was the previous comment). I think I will definitely be doing a crash course prior to these interviews so I at least have a fighting chance. My dilemma is that right now I do have Harvard on my résumé, and I don't want to look like the Harvard kid who wasn't able to get an equally prestigious job post-college. My alternatives, if consulting doesn't work out, would be grad school (probably a masters) at another big name uni. Given my ultimate goals, I'm not sure which would be a better idea, but I suppose there is no point thinking about it until later on.
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Sep 20, 2013 00:28
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semicolonsrock posted:résumé 
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Sep 20, 2013 02:14
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There was this kid during training/group rushing who came up to me saying every group wanted to meet her except mine (presumably for her pedigree and training scores). If I weren't so busy, I would have said go gently caress yourself.
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Sep 20, 2013 02:52
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I just got a Mac and the punctuation options are exciting ok!?
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Sep 20, 2013 04:57
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I've been getting emails from headhunters pretty frequently for entry level stuff, would it be breaking some type of ethical code to post the firms or info they send me here? I probably wouldn't vouch for anyone I didn't know but at least it would let people know who's hiring.
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Sep 20, 2013 13:38
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semicolonsrock posted:Thanks, this was really helpful (as was the previous comment). I think I will definitely be doing a crash course prior to these interviews so I at least have a fighting chance. Well to be honest the H bomb is what is probably helping you get those interviews, I wouldn't worry so much about prestige it's not like you are going from Harvard to work at the Gap for two years. Prestige is about transferred perception and is second to work history as time goes on. In the long run as you move up the ranks that Harvard degree isn't going to mean anything if you haven't gone in and kicked rear end and shown that YOU are elite in the real world. So worry a little less about perception and more about where you will get opportunities to shine, where will you learn the most, where you will get opportunity and where you will kick the most rear end. And just for reference PE/IB firms big and small tend to attract elite school people. The small(~50) firm I work at has 4 HBS folks and is about 50% top tier elite schools.
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Sep 20, 2013 14:06
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J4Gently posted:Well to be honest the H bomb is what is probably helping you get those interviews, I wouldn't worry so much about prestige it's not like you are going from Harvard to work at the Gap for two years. Prestige is about transferred perception and is second to work history as time goes on. In the long run as you move up the ranks that Harvard degree isn't going to mean anything if you haven't gone in and kicked rear end and shown that YOU are elite in the real world. Ah, that's reassuring. Being around prestige obsessed people all the time can warp your perspective.
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Sep 20, 2013 18:32
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Thoogsby posted:I've been getting emails from headhunters pretty frequently for entry level stuff, would it be breaking some type of ethical code to post the firms or info they send me here? I probably wouldn't vouch for anyone I didn't know but at least it would let people know who's hiring. Headhunters will typically request that you not disclose the positions they reach out to you about. Especially if you get to the point of knowing the identity of the firm. Also on large v. small banks, unless you're at a really off-brand shop doing tiny deals you're pretty much guaranteed to get paid more at boutiques. And get cash rather than equity.
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Sep 23, 2013 03:42
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Just got out of the office, feels good dumping poo poo on the first year
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Sep 24, 2013 05:58
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Thoogsby posted:I've been getting emails from headhunters pretty frequently for entry level stuff, would it be breaking some type of ethical code to post the firms or info they send me here? I probably wouldn't vouch for anyone I didn't know but at least it would let people know who's hiring. Maybe you can post information about the recruiters themselves? That way anyone interested could reach out and get on their radar.
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Sep 24, 2013 14:50
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More excelchat because this blew my mind as I'd never seen it, despite basically living in the program: =SUM(Sheet1:Sheet5!A1) works as you'd expect. We need a PYF excel tricks thread. E: it doesn't even need sequential numbering in it. It treats the sheet order in the bottom-left as a sequential dimension. So you can do London:Moscow!A1:B5 and select across A1-B5 in all sheets between London and Moscow, as per the sheet order. Nam Taf fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 08:14
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Yeah I use that all the time for rolling up multiple asset models of the same format into a company-wide model. =indirect is also a pretty badass function when you get used to it.
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Oct 1, 2013 21:36
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Who knows a good personal accountant in the city? Its time to move beyond turbotax.
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Oct 1, 2013 23:26
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Bobx66 posted:Who knows a good personal accountant in the city? Its time to move beyond turbotax. Could ask the goon tax preparer furushotakeru.
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Oct 2, 2013 00:09
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Made it to final round for an M&A focused i-bank!  Anyone have advice on how to prepare? I'm assuming it is a barrage of cases + fit interviews, from what I've inferred. I've been doing a lot of case interview practice, mental math, and reading through M&A reports by places like Lazard. Is there anything which would be particularly efficient for preparing here?
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Oct 2, 2013 01:29
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