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I <3 banker chicks. More often than not, they're confident, cute, intelligent, and easygoing. Plus they understand the whole works-90-hour-weeks thing. Not sure why banker guys always poo poo on them. Maybe they see them as a threat? Which is silly, there's exactly one female director and 0 female MDs in my group (which has a fuckton of directors and something like 6 MDs). e: and they share my nerdy obsession with all things Excel In other news, only pulled 12 hours today, was out by 8. suck on that M&A bitcheeees tolerabletariff fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jun 23, 2011 |
# ? Jun 23, 2011 03:05 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 04:04 |
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PurePerfection posted:Have any of you gone into trading without the quant background of a financial engineering, computational finance, or general math/stats program? Was it a struggle to master the work? Did you feel disadvantaged relative to those with quant backgrounds? I did internship rotations in both sales and trading; I'm conflicted about what to do full-time. For what its worth, the couple of traders I semi-know got their quant skills through courses the company paid for. If I remember correctly, the one they did was a 3-day crammer by a local firm. Now, these guys aren't from Goldman or anything but the point is you can actually brush up your quant skills to an acceptable level fairly quickly and 'on the cheap' if you really want tp.
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 06:51 |
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I don't post in BFC much if at all but seriously, how much of a return should I be expecting these days?
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 08:17 |
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8% Pay $100 for my e-book and I'll tell you how.
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 09:12 |
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The Capitulator posted:For what its worth, the couple of traders I semi-know got their quant skills through courses the company paid for. If I remember correctly, the one they did was a 3-day crammer by a local firm. Now, these guys aren't from Goldman or anything but the point is you can actually brush up your quant skills to an acceptable level fairly quickly and 'on the cheap' if you really want tp. I don't know if you can become a Quant by taking a 3-day class. The term Quant gets thrown around a lot but true Quants usually have a Phd in their respective math field. You'll usually be able to spot a Quant because they're simultaneously being the smuggest motherfucker on the planet while bankrupting your institution.
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 13:13 |
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Thoogsby posted:Lew invented securitization, not MBS. Per All The Devils are Here (which everyone should read) Passthroughs are wholly different than CMO's. The Capitulator posted:For what its worth, the couple of traders I semi-know got their quant skills through courses the company paid for. If I remember correctly, the one they did was a 3-day crammer by a local firm. Now, these guys aren't from Goldman or anything but the point is you can actually brush up your quant skills to an acceptable level fairly quickly and 'on the cheap' if you really want tp. True quants are PhDs and usually do tons of programming. I'm not sure how you could pick that up in 3 days.
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 17:09 |
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Thoogsby posted:I don't know if you can become a Quant by taking a 3-day class. The term Quant gets thrown around a lot but true Quants usually have a Phd in their respective math field. I still remember the first day of my Intro to Finance course in undergrad. "If you know so much about finance, why aren't you a millionaire trading stocks?" Prof tried to laugh it off but his face was pretty drat .
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 18:50 |
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Mr. WTF posted:...man I so wish there were more women in banking. It is an industry that could absolutely use the balance and perspective provided by both genders. Of the 15 years I've been in it (M&A), I've probably seen about 1-5% women at my firm, excluding assistants. It is a serious problem. I think it's closer to 10% at mine, but still a bit dismal. My intern class was 80/20 though, so at least there's a small improvement on the horizon since the full-time offers went to approximately the same ratio of men and women. I really believe that a lot of the problem is rooted outside of the institutions themselves and that female-targeted recruitment programs can't solve everything. When I was interviewing about a year and a half ago, the 80/20 ratio was pretty much in line with the gender ratio of the applicants/interviewees - not a lot of women were even coming out to try for the jobs. That ratio was no better for my upper-level finance classes at university, either - corporate finance and investment analysis were a little more balanced, but my international finance (basically FX derivatives), derivative securities, and computational finance electives were around 90/10. If every student, male and female, from my finance classes had applied to the position I got, the applicant ratio wouldn't even have improved. tolerabletariff posted:I <3 banker chicks. More often than not, they're confident, cute, intelligent, and easygoing. Plus they understand the whole works-90-hour-weeks thing. Not sure why banker guys always poo poo on them. Maybe they see them as a threat? Which is silly, there's exactly one female director and 0 female MDs in my group (which has a fuckton of directors and something like 6 MDs). At my firm, at least, the female employees are younger and newer to the firm than the male employees on average, so I don't necessarily see the lack of female MDs as evidence of discrimination or anything deliberate. Most banks I know about didn't start recruiting females in earnest until maybe 15-20 years ago, and there's a fairly large turnover rate compared to males at banks. Some of that seems to happen as women start families and look for jobs that are less time-consuming and stressful - this probably hits banks harder than other types of firms because of the demanding nature of the work. I know several women in their 30s at my firm who've worked their way up to VP/Director level positions but plan to leave when they have children; the ones I spoke to didn't even intend to drop out of the workforce but wanted a 9-5 job instead. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot that can be done about that in terms of ensuring more women are elevated to MD level. Banks often are flexible about the schedules and work assigned to women returning from maternity leave, especially if they've got some seniority on their desks, but cutting back on time and effort at work doesn't exactly keep you on track for promotions There's a big trade-off for anyone who decides to stay on but scale back the work they do. It's very interesting (sometimes frustrating) to be a "banker chick" (S&T chick?) and see the reactions gotten from NON-banker men in my social circle. This pretty much started right after I got a full-time offer in summer 2010, and even though I'm fresh out of school and still making five figures, the guys I'm friends with or get romantically involved with tend to split into this dichotomy of "I couldn't see myself in a serious relationship with someone who [makes so much more money than me/works so many more hours than me/spends so much time working with single, rich guys/is part of such an evil industry and has no soul]" versus "Wow, I could be your trophy boyfriend/husband! Can you pay for dinner?" Of course these are extremes and the reality is often more subtle, but I've yet to find any guys who are neutral toward my career choice in the way they might be if I had a lower-paid or less-demanding job. None of the banker guys I've worked with seem to poo poo on banker chicks the way you're describing, but that doesn't mean they're totally cool with us. While I do have a large circle of male banker friends who have always been as nice and respectful to me as anyone else, most of them still make comments implying that they'd never date a banker because they wouldn't want to feel threatened or in competition with their girlfriends because they have comparable jobs. Another point often made is that they "don't want to have to talk about banking at home." I'm really not offended by it, because I can see their point. It might be hard to have a long-term relationship when both partners are competitive by nature and fighting for salaries, bonuses and promotions that are very comparable if they aren't coming from the same firm. Not to mention the effect that the long hours, sleep deprivation, and stress might have on a relationship when both people have these problems. That said, I've dated a couple of banker guys short-term, and these issues never came up - the relationships just fizzled out due to lack of compatibility on other levels, and I wouldn't rule out dating other guys from the industry. The Capitulator posted:For what its worth, the couple of traders I semi-know got their quant skills through courses the company paid for. If I remember correctly, the one they did was a 3-day crammer by a local firm. Now, these guys aren't from Goldman or anything but the point is you can actually brush up your quant skills to an acceptable level fairly quickly and 'on the cheap' if you really want tp. Vomik posted:
My intention isn't to go onto a trading desk dominated by PhD quants or that would require a ton of programming. The trading desks I had experience on and liked were ones that weren't extremely quantitative as trading desks go. Most of the pricing was done using standardized models that they would tweak and adjust as needed, and the math competency necessary was mostly conceptual - the ability to quickly understand HOW the pricing process worked, to come up with a means of pricing some exotic derivative a client had requested, and so on, not the ability to write complex code that would do that process for you. We do have two months of upcoming classroom training, though, rather than a 3-day workshop, so I'm sure a lot of this is yet to be covered.
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# ? Jun 23, 2011 23:39 |
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PurePerfection posted:I think it's closer to 10% at mine, but still a bit dismal. My intern class was 80/20 though, so at least there's a small improvement on the horizon since the full-time offers went to approximately the same ratio of men and women. I really believe that a lot of the problem is rooted outside of the institutions themselves and that female-targeted recruitment programs can't solve everything. When I was interviewing about a year and a half ago, the 80/20 ratio was pretty much in line with the gender ratio of the applicants/interviewees - not a lot of women were even coming out to try for the jobs. That ratio was no better for my upper-level finance classes at university, either - corporate finance and investment analysis were a little more balanced, but my international finance (basically FX derivatives), derivative securities, and computational finance electives were around 90/10. If every student, male and female, from my finance classes had applied to the position I got, the applicant ratio wouldn't even have improved. I think this is part of the reason it will take such a long time for the gender representation to even out. Banks can look at the applicants they get and say they're representing women accordingly and be done with the issue. But how many women didn't pursue those jobs because of the reputation banking has for being un-friendly to women? It seems like a catch-22 where banks need more female applicants for women to be better represented but women won't apply in large numbers until their gender is better represented and they know they aren't ending up in a work environment they won't be happy with. I'm in Capital Markets but women probably represent about a third of the people on the trading floor. Most of them pretty young though.
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# ? Jun 24, 2011 12:47 |
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Thoogsby posted:I think this is part of the reason it will take such a long time for the gender representation to even out. Banks can look at the applicants they get and say they're representing women accordingly and be done with the issue. But how many women didn't pursue those jobs because of the reputation banking has for being un-friendly to women? It seems like a catch-22 where banks need more female applicants for women to be better represented but women won't apply in large numbers until their gender is better represented and they know they aren't ending up in a work environment they won't be happy with. I think this is a big part of it, and I think a lack of confidence in their ability to perform this type of work is another, and that's the part it'll be harder for the banks to solve. Or, at least, that's the reasoning a lot of my finance-track classmates cited for avoiding advanced, math-heavy financial electives in favor of simpler accounting courses that fulfilled the degree requirements. I was surprised by the number of female students who were too "bad at math" to take the types of courses recruiters expected of them, and by the number who, after getting internships, refused to even consider trading desks rather than sales. I can understand some of those concerns - as I posted before, even I have concerns about being experienced enough at math, but I don't doubt my ability to learn it.
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# ? Jun 24, 2011 21:30 |
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Fuckin' axman came through yesterday. And will be around for a while. Not exactly comforting to watch 25% of your group get RIFed. Especially my immediate supervisor, who had been amazing for me since I started. My friends in the other offices don't know about it yet. I'm thinking about all those people I met in training, and wondering who's not gonna make it... Also Thoogsby you wouldn't happen to work for BMOCM would you?
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# ? Jun 25, 2011 15:20 |
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tolerabletariff posted:Fuckin' axman came through yesterday. And will be around for a while. Not exactly comforting to watch 25% of your group get RIFed. Especially my immediate supervisor, who had been amazing for me since I started. Ouch, that sucks. Same thing happened to DCM here, except it was a few months after my internship rotation and I heard about it from some of the surviving group members. Fortunately, my immediate supervisor and the CMU alum I was close with on my desk both survived the layoffs, along with most of the other younger employees. I was on Rates though, and the worst of it happened the neighboring origination desk. On the bright side, drat near everyone left got a promotion and base salary raise.
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# ? Jun 25, 2011 20:51 |
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tolerabletariff posted:Also Thoogsby you wouldn't happen to work for BMOCM would you? Negative. My internships done on Wednesday though then I'm off to LSE to take classes in London for the summer.
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# ? Jun 27, 2011 21:33 |
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Ah my bad. I have a few friends SAing at BMO so I figured I'd ask. I feel like BMO is the unsung MM in the U.S., maybe not a BB but gets poo poo done in a big way compared to a lot of other mid-sizes. How do you guys feel about the Greek vote tomorrow? I don't see any way out for them besides approving the austerity package, protests or not... If it gets voted down (and I don't think that's particularly likely) we could see a 400+ drop in the DJIA and ripple effects throughout the EU and US economies as investors poo poo their collective pants... Particularly stupid quote from a protestor I read in WSJ, "We don't need EU money, they should leave us alone..." Idiots, you already took their money, you're trying to make your payments at this point. I know my trading friends are watching this with bated breath, hopefully the market reaction won't be too extreme.
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# ? Jun 29, 2011 06:43 |
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Greece is going to have to default in one way or another and the semantics don't matter too much at this point. The ratings agencies have made it clear a restructuing (voluntary or not) is going to be considered a default. The math just doesn't add up. All of these half measures are just kicking the can further down the road. I also fear that people underestimate the implications a greek default has on the U.S. Economy. Estimates for CDS exposure for American banks is $120 billion+. Let's just hope they didn't all use the same insurer this time.
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# ? Jun 29, 2011 12:38 |
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Also, I recommend reading Michael Lewis's piece in Vanity Fair about just how much of a crazy, backwards country Greece is right now: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010
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# ? Jun 29, 2011 16:34 |
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I'd really prefer that Greece push it away as far as possible though. poo poo's gotta amortize amirite?
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# ? Jul 1, 2011 04:33 |
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Anyone here use Bloomberg regularly? Just got my hands on it and want to know how to do cool poo poo, like look at Greece's debt profile.
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# ? Jul 4, 2011 00:37 |
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Its Miller Time posted:Anyone here use Bloomberg regularly? Just got my hands on it and want to know how to do cool poo poo, like look at Greece's debt profile. Hit Help twice and ask them anything you want.
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# ? Jul 4, 2011 15:34 |
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I use BB on the reg but it's such a huge system that I can't really do anything outside of what was needed for my job except like look up obvious poo poo.
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# ? Jul 4, 2011 18:54 |
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Type: BU <Go> Now look at the schedule of classes you have in front of you. Completely free-of-charge, you just register beforehand through the BB terminal. Also, Bloomberg offices everywhere have tons of delicious food for clients in for training. I've probably done like 6 classes over the past few years, incredibly helpful. Off the top of my head, to look up Greek debt poo poo you'd want to type: GREECE <Gov't> <Go> But I've never had to look up government debt before so that might be wrong.
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# ? Jul 4, 2011 18:57 |
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Mandalay posted:I still remember the first day of my Intro to Finance course in undergrad. "If you know so much about finance, why aren't you a millionaire trading stocks?" Prof tried to laugh it off but his face was pretty drat . You were just like Tom Cruise in Cocktail!
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# ? Jul 4, 2011 23:10 |
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Any new Analysts getting ready to go to NYC for training? Any thoughts from those who have been through it... I've heard it's relatively relaxed and just a good chance to meet people.
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 18:36 |
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Senphet posted:Any new Analysts getting ready to go to NYC for training? Any thoughts from those who have been through it... I've heard it's relatively relaxed and just a good chance to meet people. Just don't be this guy. Although everyone here did think it was hilarious.
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 01:40 |
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So about what percentage of i-bankers -- in particular the Manhattan ones -- are as gross as the ones who comment on Dealbreaker posts?
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 03:14 |
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realqueenbetty posted:So about what percentage of i-bankers -- in particular the Manhattan ones -- are as gross as the ones who comment on Dealbreaker posts? Oh come on, I enjoyed: "Soveriegn wealth funds are not strict about CDO's, so if you have a fake you will be fine."
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 04:06 |
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Senphet posted:Any new Analysts getting ready to go to NYC for training? Any thoughts from those who have been through it... I've heard it's relatively relaxed and just a good chance to meet people. I know one of my housemates is going off, I went three year ago and had a hell of a time. Just remember not to work too hard at all, they're not sending you there to work, dammit!
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 08:13 |
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realqueenbetty posted:So about what percentage of i-bankers -- in particular the Manhattan ones -- are as gross as the ones who comment on Dealbreaker posts? My perception is that people that say poo poo like this: quote:At GS you just run out for 20 minutes, do an 8-ball off your hooker's rear end crack, smack her and throw her a few Benjamins, and then you get back to the loving office and do God's muthafuckin' work. None of this lollygagging around at some faggoty intern party where you "get wild" with some Jaegger shots and roll in late the next morning. And THAT is why JP Morgan will always - in the end - kiss my ring and wash my balls. have never, and probably will never actually work in banking. They'll either get caught in interviews or realize it's not anything like the movie Wall Street and look for a different career.
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 11:57 |
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Just don't forget not to fail your series 7/79s at the end and you'll be fine; gently caress up on those and you're probably hosed--don't know anyone who's done that though. Other than that, I've heard it's a party. When I was in the condensed program they give interns I went out every night. Consider analyst training the only vacation you'll get for the next three years. You'll be spending a lot of time at JTree (quintessential banker bar) and Prof Thom's (a Boston sports bar with a balcony that's always dangerously overcrowded). Don't forget to close your tab 'cause getting your card back in the middle of the day is a bitch. Well, I'm now over halfway through my summer program and I gotta say, banking is pretty sweet. Good money, free dinners, and a car home never hurt anyone. I figured I'd do this, get my offer, and leverage it for a consulting gig at Bain/McKinsey, but now I'm not so sure. R.A. Dickey posted:Just don't be this guy. Although everyone here did think it was hilarious. I saw that on dealbreaker for the first time and was borderline offended that I didn't get invited to the Cool Interns' parties. Did a little sniffing around and found out this kid is as far from actual banking as it gets--he is (or was, not sure if he got canned) in the tech support group. It only got sent around to back-officey folks, I think HR/Compliance/Ops. HR subsequently poo poo themselves and sent around a nasty e-mail to interns everywhere.
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# ? Jul 8, 2011 06:35 |
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You know what's loving sweet? My SA banner ads are now predominantly for Bergdorf Goodman. see: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ultimate-status-symbol-at-goldman-the-ferragamo-loafer-2011-1
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# ? Jul 9, 2011 05:07 |
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I've got an interview with the Australian office (Sydney) of a mid-market, international investment bank in just over a week for advisory. Interview is with their head of corporate finance. I've done the following: - Researched their Australian ops and got a breakdown of their division profits, recent deals (both current and closed) for the past 12 months and key staff - Gone over my technical stuff (valuation models, components of cash flows, accounting effects, etc) and the intricacies associated with them - Summarised key trends in Australian M&A, key deals, league tables, etc Is there anything else I should do? This is the same preparation I did for Citi not long ago, but considering I didn't land the role there I was wondering if I'd missed anything. Any help would be much appreciated.
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# ? Jul 10, 2011 07:28 |
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I just got an interview for an instiutional equity sales position. In short... what is that? Is that executing equity sales for large instiutions or selling research or? Help!
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# ? Jul 13, 2011 17:00 |
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Dreaming Android posted:I've got an interview with the Australian office (Sydney) of a mid-market, international investment bank in just over a week for advisory. If they do a lot of M&A (I'm guessing since you said advisory), they'll be mostly interested in how well you understand businesses - especially in the verticals they are good in. ..ie, do you get the leverage importance/scale possibilities of a high gross margin, how do mature EBITDA positive businesses trade vs. faster growing businesses, recurring revenue and it's impact on leverage...stuff like that. One way I get to this is to ask candidates to talk about a particular business they are familiar with and tell me why it would make an attractive M&A candidate and to who...and why it would be ugly as well. I also ask some simple technical questions which anyone would get if they did that kind of homework before. Other than that though, I just talk to them and look for raw intelligence and desire...and would I want to work long hours with them personality wise. The younger they are, the more those two raw characteristics are important (to me) vs. existing plug and play knowledge. Hope this helps a bit..
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# ? Jul 13, 2011 17:55 |
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Koppite posted:I just got an interview for an instiutional equity sales position. In short... what is that? Is that executing equity sales for large instiutions or selling research or? Help! Is it sales trading or research sales? Or did was that the thrust of your question?
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 05:56 |
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What exactly is "sales trading"? I've heard the term used repeatedly but Google isn't particularly helpful (lots of results for Sales & Trading, even with quotes. I mean, I get securities sales and trading (post-Volcker, just market-making I guess) makes sense, but what's "sales trading"? And how is it different from being on a straight-up sales desk? Also institutional equity sales means you're on an equity sales desk and your book is comprised of institutional investors like pension funds, mutual funds, and the like. I don't know if you're selling the research as much as the trades, but you'll be reading a lot of reports from Equity Research and making recommendations to clients based on them.
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 07:51 |
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Anyone know what kind of finance-related things I should know for an interview for an analyst-level internship with a VC firm? I'm sure the modeling is very simple compared to actual finance jobs, but all my past internships have been in tech/biz dev so I need to figure out what I should focus on relearning.
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 17:08 |
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tolerabletariff posted:What exactly is "sales trading"? I've heard the term used repeatedly but Google isn't particularly helpful (lots of results for Sales & Trading, even with quotes. I mean, I get securities sales and trading (post-Volcker, just market-making I guess) makes sense, but what's "sales trading"? And how is it different from being on a straight-up sales desk? So in sales and trading (as it's been explained to me during my experiences on trading floors) there are 3 areas: research sales, sales trading, and prop trading. Not all shops have all three, but the ones who are at least middle market should. Research sales is pretty straight-forward: selling your analysts and analysis to clients. Sales trading is essentially crossing trades and placing trades for clients. Proprietary trading, in these shops, is used as a tool to help buyers and sellers (that their sales traders can't cross) with counter-parties (that is, their mandate is to not lose much money, as opposed to making huge wads of cash, but if they do make cash - great). That's my understanding and interpretation, someone else's experience might be different. This is where I'm trying to get in mainly (although I've been hearing good things about PWM also so that could be A Thing).
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 17:09 |
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GO gently caress YOURSELF posted:Is it sales trading or research sales? Or did was that the thrust of your question? That's the thrust.
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 17:15 |
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Thoogsby posted:Friend of a friend at my non-target school is doing a summer at GS Levfin. Miracles do happen. My brother's college buddy landed one at Goldman Sachs in San Fran from a non-target by being in the same frat as the interviewer.
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# ? Jul 15, 2011 00:26 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 04:04 |
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flyingfoggy posted:Anyone know what kind of finance-related things I should know for an interview for an analyst-level internship with a VC firm? I'm sure the modeling is very simple compared to actual finance jobs, but all my past internships have been in tech/biz dev so I need to figure out what I should focus on relearning. We work with lots of VC firms...they'll be interested that you have sound financial basics and excel skills, but they'll probably also be much more interested in your knowledge of the space (ie, tech wise, SaaS software companies, semiconductors, social gaming business models, etc) that they invest in.
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# ? Jul 15, 2011 22:57 |