Transitioning from IB to AM/HF or Any Market-Oriented Role
Currently going through the second year of my analyst stint. Nothing has been absolutely terrible or unbearable. My only issues are more so around predictability of making plans, weekends being on call, etc.
With that being said, I want to start thinking ahead many months to even a year down the line so I am prepared. I'd like to ultimately find myself in some markets-oriented role (macro focused and not too technical). Maybe it's my lack of understanding of all the different roles, but I really don't have a preference for whether that's AM, HF, Wealth Management of some sort or something else.
I'd like to do something less-focused on getting too granular on individual companies or fundamentals and more so macro-focused however (guessing that cuts ER?)
I very strongly do NOT want to do an MBA, so I suppose my question is how difficult would this transition be / is it common? Am I expected to pick up an MBA or at minimum a CFA designation? Maybe I'm naive, but when I first got into IB I figured I'd have optionality to just about any finance role but it seems like a lot of the opportunities are PE/Corp Dev/Deal-oriented which I have no interest in. Am I wrong?
Thank you all for the help
bump
You probably should understand what these roles really are and why they are different first. On typical IB exits, well it teaches you the fundamentals of understanding companies and valuations and what drives value / how management tries to create value. That is helpful for positions where you are investing in businesses from a fundamental perspective, so PE and HFs, (or HFs where you are investing directly into equities and/or credit). For macro investing, you are mostly looking at interest rates and currencies and macroeconomics, and experience in S&T on those desks would've been more helpful. Unfortunately discretionary global macro is a dying breed and most global macro is becoming much more quantitative and systematically driven. Obviously not 100%, but it is getting harder to get those seats.
I think the bigger issue is you don't really know what you want to do though. Why markets oriented? Why do you want to be an investor? What securities do you like to look at/analyze and why? I think you really need to do some reading - maybe check out more money than god and stock market wizards - recognize that some of it is dated but understand what you enjoy doing, and really understand what you would be doing on a day to day basis, because you need to really love it.
You won't get any specific advice here because you laid out a few very different options that all have different paths. IB still sets you up to do most of them, but it depends on what you want to do, and we can't answer that.
Thank you for your response. So I'm more interested in the macro side with regards to as you noted looking at rates, macroeconomics and currencies. Not as interested in the fundamentals of understanding companies / how management creates value which is unfortunate because as you noted it seems the IB skillset is more suited to that. Also didn't know that discretionary macro is dying and is more quantitative.
I like seeing the interplay of economies, monetary policy, fiscal policy, etc. In terms of the path of going towards the macro route, how would I eventually transition to that rather than the more common fundamental/company valuation side of things? Is this just one of those transitions that's very difficult due to skillset?
Read the books about great macro investors (tons of them out there, quick google search), look up the funds that still do discretionary global macro and look at their backgrounds, try and connect and network with people there saying you want to learn more about it. Those conversations will be more productive than here. LinkedIn is also your friend to look at the backgrounds (you will see a lot got started on prop desks that don't exist anymore today). Talk to the S&T teams at your bank as well and see if you can lateral. That said, there are tons of positions that still fit what you said you enjoy doing, so you are still going to need to be more specific about what you want to do. PWM, AM, and HFs are very different - time to crank out some research and understand the differences and what type of investing each firm does (also note that not all PWM shops are the same, and again with AM and HFs). Oh also there are macro research teams at most banks within ER so you can go for that if you are interested.
There are some threads on here about macro investing and the frameworks that some individuals use. Use the search function and read all the macro threads. I would get going on investment ideas and preparing pitches which will also be helpful when reaching out to people. The secret is that most jobs happen from referrals and networking, and your transition is definitely possible, I just don't know what you want to do specifically.
Thank you for the help this great. Didn't realize that banks internally will have these sort of teams so may begin there first. Imagine it would be a lot easier doing that than trying to go elsewhere
You wont last long if lifestyle is the driving favtor behind taking a risk seat
Look into sovereign debt investing, it's macro-focused and looks into all of these + country politics. It's right up that alley.
I'm not sure you can just jump in with just IB experience, you may have to work an adjacent and relevant role before getting there.
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