We're quickly approaching the summer when a fun-filled crop of fresh-faced monkeys will descend upon firms nationwide, hoping to secure a job post graduation. For the newly minted managers out there, you've got your work cut out for you. New guys come in all shapes and sizes and they present all different sorts of challenges. But, oddly enough, I've always found that a particular group of new employees, whether they're interns or new full time people, to be oddly tricky to manage:

Hard working, high achieving, target university students/graduates.

I know, it sounds almost unbelievable, but for one reason or another, this group tends to exhibit attributes that can make a manager's life difficult. Hopefully, those of you who are going to be responsible for this type of employee, or those of you leaving your target university with your high GPA and fancy major, will find the following advice useful.

You've just gotten that promotion and now you're in charge of a small team. Congratulations! And welcome to middle management. All the hard work and the knowledge you've developed about everything your firm does these past few years has been noticed. But, now you have a small team of people under you. You're responsible for them. Don't take this task lightly.

How does one get into middle management? You have to master the many aspects of your initial job. This could be anywhere from building models to painting decks to auditing the many line items of a company. Whatever it is you do, you have to be a rock star, you will probably have "seen it all", and most importantly, your current bosses trust in your abilities and allow you to work (more or less) independently. Once all of those ducks are in a row, you'll be granted more responsibility, in particular, the responsibility for the work of people under you.

You'll be given, as I like to call them, minions. How you view your responsibility towards your new minions, and how you proceed with having them do your bidding (see why I call them minions?), can be the difference between being a good manager or a crappy one. We all have stories of crappy managers, but there's a paucity of discussion on what makes a good one. Hopefully those of you about to enter into your first real management position will get some benefit from what I've learned over the years.

1. Don't try to do all the work yourself.

Hello fellow CFA candidate monkeys,

What a great way to start the week, right? Our admission tickets to the exam are now available! We now officially have the pleasure of spending a perfectly fine Saturday in a large room full of people who, moments previously, were frantically scanning Schweser's quicksheet in a last ditch effort to prepare. In all honesty, I'm less than enthusiastic about it. Like many of you, I'll be sitting for level 2 a mere 24 days from now, and like many more of you, I'm starting to panic. Granted, this isn't unusual or unique, but I've found that whenever I bring this up with other CFA candidates, I hear, without fail, this immeasurably stupid bit of advice:

Afternoon Monkeys,

Any Red Sox fans here on WSO? How about MMORPG fans? Maybe there's some fans of government sponsored VC failure? Well, if you inexplicably landed in all three categories, the recent Bloomberg article by Jonathan Mahler discussing Rhode Island's ill advised foray into the world of VC via Curt Schilling's 38 Studios is probably old news. For the rest of you who may be less familiar with the story, the complete meltdown of 38 Studios and nearly $100 million of Rhode Island's money is worth a read. Also, as Mahler notes, for those of you currently at HBS, an in depth look may be more readily available than you realize:

Over at The Atlantic, Jordan Weissmann summarizes a study done by Northeastern University sociologist, Michael Handel, in an article titled Here's How Little Math Americans Actually Use at Work. I'm sure you can guess how Weissmann interprets the results of the study just by reading the title. If not, the first paragraph should spell it out:

I never would've guessed that my 17-year-old self was right about anything. Perhaps the Wu-Tang Clan is the greatest musical group ever, maybe puffy, down vests never did go out of style, and maybe Heather from math class really is the hottest girl I'll ever see. Or, maybe, just maybe, Weissmann has the causality completely backwards.

You've lost a ton of value in a short amount of time, and now, even though you're sitting on untold billions, Moody's and S&P snubs you on a AAA debt rating! Even the article appears to feel bad for Apple:

That seems a little strange to me, luckily, their reasoning is especially clever:

I came across an article from Reuters discussing the potential benefits of breaking up the largest "universal" banks, probably places many of you work now or potentially in the future. The article notes that three analysts have recently reported on some of the benefits of this particular action, analysts from Wells Fargo, CLSA, and J.P. Morgan, which adds an interesting twist to the concept.

It should come as no surprise that the article notes that the impetus of this action comes from the new and expansive regulations in areas like capital requirements, among others, found in Dodd-Frank:

Hey monkeys,

I'm sure you've all been there, a stock that you just keep tossing money at, and despite all the analysis, the models, and readings and re-readings of company financials, the market just won't agree with you. The optimist in you will justify short term share losses, "Oh, the massive drop in gold is affecting everything" or, "The manufacturing index missed expectations, but that shouldn't have hurt this particular company as much as it has" and you gleefully buy more shares that are seemingly "on sale". Then, at least for me, the pessimist shows up and the second guessing commences, "That impairment was a bigger deal then you thought" or, "The recent decrease/increase in revenue/COGS are not just a result of decreasing/increasing commodity prices, it's management and it's permanent". This is not a fun experience, nobody likes to post losses, and blows to your ego can sometimes hurt as badly, if not worse (depending on how much you have invested).

So, when faced with a situation like this, what do you do? Run back through the financials? Rebuild your models? As I'm sure you can all guess, I'm having one of these moments myself, wondering if I'm throwing good money after bad, and trying to figure out a reasonable strategy to try and figure out whether I should close a position or trust in my earlier analysis. Maybe someone here on WSO is having a similar experience with the stock I'm currently frustrated about:

Vale SA

Ever heard or said the old line, "A monkey could do this job"? Well, according to a recent blurb in the WSJ London's Cass Business School (a study sponsored by Aon Hewitt) decided to go out and test that theory as it relates to building an index. Their findings state:

Wait, built by "monkeys" you say? Why is the word monkeys in quotes? Are they surprised that monkeys fully crushed indices made by non-monkeys? I know all the finance monkeys here on WSO slay benchmark indices daily! Is the WSJ trying to start something?

Monkeys,

An interesting tid bit from President Obama's proposed budget was noted by Bloomberg, namely the capping of IRA's to $3 million. Well, to me, "interesting" isn't the right word, from where I'm sitting, "very stupid" seems more appropriate, but perhaps I'm being too harsh and someone can elucidate as to why it's not monumentally foolish.

Apparently, the thought of accumulating vast amounts of money via IRAs is a bad thing, and the article points out the impetus for this action is none other than, Mitt Romney: