To prep for ST SA interviews:
I read the WSJ, Seeking Alpha, FT, Bloomberg very extensively on top of watching Bloomberg and CNBC. I know all the general macro trends: unemployment, QE2, euro zone crisis, housing indexes, manufacturing indexes, Chinese tightening monetary policies...
I also have brushed up on fundamental textbook knowledge of products, B-S, basic option pricing and greeks, some products I've done work with like var swaps
On top of mock interviewing for fit questions, I also read about individual companies when important news comes up
HOWEVER,
I realized I don't follow a SINGLE company consistently. I can't tell you where any company trades at... TBH, I don't find tracking companies religiously and becoming an expert stock picker through fund. analysis very thrilling... I don't want to trade cash equities. I will read up on one or two companies for a potential stock pitch
I was wondering how important is it to actually follow a lot of these single name equities
IMO you have to love what you do to seriously last... you have to want to swim with the sharks. It sounds as if you are just doing this for a pay check w/o any real passion for the sport. I'm not saying you will fail, you may make it and get paid handsomely for your efforts. After time the stress associated with this profession may wear you down w/o a love for the game.
Good Luck Bro!
I'm confused.... You want to work in S&T yet you don't really follow stocks and trade your own portfolio?!?
See previous posts. If you want to be successful you need to genuinely enjoy the markets otherwise you'll be weeded out within a few months.
wtf do you want to trade? wtf are you interviewing for?
Your other thread was about swaps. I do not see how following single names consistently would be a requirement to be a great swaps trader. Nor an FX trader, nor a commodity trader.
That said you best follow something consistently. You best have 1-5 good trade ideas from start to finish. Does not a ticker, but its gots to be something.
No need to bash him for not following single name stocks, for some people equities/credit just isn't what they want to do. If you are more interested in the macro focus (fx, ir) then thats fine and focus on that. Have 1 or 2 stock trade ideas ready just in case, but dont kill yourself over it if thats not what you are going into, if you say you want to be an interest rate swaps trader its much better to have a trade idea on that that is really developed.
As the great above advice has suggested pick one product and be sure you know it well. If you are interviewing for fixed income and they ask you to pitch them a stock just be honest and say you dont follow individual stocks but insert fixed income trade idea and crush it. There is nothing wrong with that. If you want to trade var/vol swaps on the S&P you have to have a good understanding on the macro factors driving the overall market but not necessarily single stock knowledge.
I like following general market trends, macro developments like QE2, the euro debt crisis, commodity prices... Obviously these events impact many companies and I'm interested in those impacts
I'm just saying I don't wake up every morning and wonder: hey where is RIMM trading at today? How is it doing? These single names don't move outside of macro movements unless there are driving factors like an earnings report, or a new product launch... otherwise it's pretty boring to following single names consistently... I like looking at industries more
With that said, I will obviously prepare some single names for interviews... I am pretty shocked by these claims that just because I don't track a single name every day that I have no true interest in the markets and I'm just doing sales and trading for the money I don't want to be a single name equity trader for the rest of my life and I think that following general macroeconomic trends is more interesting/useful seeing as single names don't have exciting developments everyday
I think you know more about single names than you think you do. By following a macro approach you can apply that to single names and know how one thing effects the other. I use a macro approach to track the market as a whole. I like to look at the Sector ETFs and see how they have been doing. If i have a few favorites in the sector then I will follow them but right now correlations are so high just tracking the etfs is generally all that you need to do.
That being said I do still track single names within the event driven space because their trading is being as the name suggests by an event such as after a merger is announced.
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