Chi or NYC for trading

Have a choice between working in two groups which I am indifferent between. Only difference is location. Assuming company will cover housing cost differential, which location would you choose as a trader?

 

The gods honest truth is that it does not matter. All trading is going to be done electronically, so physical location shouldn't matter. Honestly, if you don't care, pick the city you like more. Unless you're a floor trader or a runner, where you will be on the exchange, it's all electronic. If my firm had an office out in Podunk, Colorado, I would work there because I can telecommute, trade and do what I need to do from the comfort of my home office.

If it really does matter to you, pick the city where there is an exchange you want to actively trade on and call it a day.

 

Chicago. Even with the company covering the rent differential, you're still not going to get as nice a place in NY because the difference would be too big. Aside from that, everything is more expensive in NY. In Chicago people are nicer, too. But I guess it all depends on your personality.

 
youngmoney:
Chicago. Even with the company covering the rent differential, you're still not going to get as nice a place in NY because the difference would be too big. Aside from that, everything is more expensive in NY. In Chicago people are nicer, too. But I guess it all depends on your personality.

you get what you pay for, ie all the benefits in living in one of the premier cities in the world. but like u said, definitely depends on preference

 
jjc1122:
Chicago by a long shot. It provides basically everything that NYC does but is a lot cheaper. For 1500/month, you can get a really nice 1-bedroom apartment in a premiere Chicago neighborhood. This really is no contest.

Really? I will make this consideration when I graduate.. Although I'm under the impression NYC has more opportunities than Chi-town.

http://www.deadstock.ca/ Your closet will never be the same again.

 

don't get me wrong. I think NY is amazing. But really, there's nothing NY has to offer that Chicago doesn't. And instead of paying $1500 for half a closet in Manhattan I'd rather pay that to have a great 1br on the 50th floor somewhere with a nice view of the lake.

 

With trading, in terms of work experience it should be identical...trading is mostly electronic, don't see why it matters what locale you are in.

However, NYC is the funnest place in the world. If you were one of those kids that went to all of your classes in college and didn't party that hard, maybe Chicago is better for you. But if you are seeking the most fun after college, NYC hands down.

Also Midwest vs Northeast...in NYC you will be 3-4 hours away from Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In Chicago you will be like 7 hours from like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis.

 

I'm from Chicago and spent all summer in NY. I think Chicago is one of the best cities in the States. NY is great too, but the two are definitely different. If the ONLY choice you have to make is location, I would say Chicago because it's cleaner and cheaper (albeit there are less things to do than in NYC). Obviously, though it's personal preference. You should visit them both and stay there for a few days to get a feel for them (if you have friends that live there).

 

I would agree with jjc1122. I moved to Chicago straight out of college from the south and lived/traded there for five years. The people are great, the winters suck but I was able to buy a great apt in an awesome hood, I had a car and life was great. I've lived/traded in NYC for the past three years. If I weren't going to school I'd prob not like it much but I'm married even though I still go out a fair amount. My personal opinion is Chicago has 85% of what NYC has at 50% of the prices. Quality of life is so much better in Chicago its ridiculous (aside from the winters.) Now NYC is an amazing place. If all you want to do is go out every night and meet amazing people and be submersed in culture then NY is your place but prices will hurt you from doing a lot of that. Granted fresh out of college you won't have many possessions so living in a box won't matter as much but you better start swinging wood pretty soon b/c you can be living paycheck to paycheck at 200k in NYC.

As far as opportunities there are many more in NYC but the main difference is the culture. You're not gonna run in to the Ivy League schmuckfest as much in Chicago although they are gradually shifting that way. It's mostly a Big Ten type group who are not to be underestimated. There are only a handful of well known trading shops in Chicago (Citadel, CTC, Wolverine, DRW, Infinium, etc) that will look great on a resume but the training and opportunity you get will prob be top notch.

Little pigs get fed, fat pigs get slaughtered
 

Chicago: Prop shops are king, less of a BB presence comparatively NYC: BB's dominate, and there are prop shops as well.

Even those statements don't appropriately answer your question. To be general about cities is difficult. If you're looking to break in, just apply to firms to both cities and once you have offers in hand, then worry about it (if that's why your curious). If that's not why and you're looking for a general answer, you won't find it on these forums.

 

NYC is comparatively lower risk, lower reward, assuming it's BB vs. Prop Shop. One of my first internships was at a clearing firm that had a proprietary trading arm. The deal was they took EVERYONE, fired 90% of them before six months was up, and let the survivors take a huge percentage of their individual net trading P&L. At most banks, you're looking at salary + typical banking bonus for years. That said, if you're bad at trading but good at something else, they can still find another spot for you rather than kick you out on the street.

You're not gonna run in to the schmuckfest as much in Chicago although they are gradually shifting that way.

&$&@&@!!

Chicago was in pretty good cultural shape three years ago. Why can't the snobs stay out HERE in the Northeast? Maybe I will have to move to Milwaukee when I come back to the Midwest. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe the folks at RW Baird will be more down to earth than the folks at the Chicago prop shops.

It's mostly a Big Ten type group who are not to be underestimated. There are only a handful of well known trading shops in Chicago (Citadel, CTC, Wolverine, DRW, Infinium, etc) that will look great on a resume but the training and opportunity you get will prob be top notch.
Don't forget NOTRE DAME. NOTRE DAME deserves to be in all caps, because whenever they win a football game, NOTRE DAME is all you ever hear friggin hear about. They're probably the only college team that has people who root against them at every game, basically in the hope that they won't have to hear about it at work the next day.

Actually, I can almost guarantee that a NOTRE DAME fan will see this post and respond that their team just beat the Illini at something. :D

 
IlliniProgrammer:
NYC is comparatively lower risk, lower reward, assuming it's BB vs. Prop Shop. One of my first internships was at a clearing firm that had a proprietary trading arm. The deal was they took EVERYONE, fired 90% of them before six months was up, and let the survivors take a huge percentage of their individual net trading P&L. At most banks, you're looking at salary + typical banking bonus for years. That said, if you're bad at trading but good at something else, they can still find another spot for you rather than kick you out on the street.
You're not gonna run in to the schmuckfest as much in Chicago although they are gradually shifting that way.

&$&@&@!!

Chicago was in pretty good cultural shape three years ago. Why can't the snobs stay out HERE in the Northeast? Maybe I will have to move to Milwaukee when I come back to the Midwest. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe the folks at RW Baird will be more down to earth than the folks at the Chicago prop shops.

It's mostly a Big Ten type group who are not to be underestimated. There are only a handful of well known trading shops in Chicago (Citadel, CTC, Wolverine, DRW, Infinium, etc) that will look great on a resume but the training and opportunity you get will prob be top notch.
Don't forget NOTRE DAME. NOTRE DAME deserves to be in all caps, because whenever they win a football game, NOTRE DAME is all you ever hear friggin hear about. They're probably the only college team that has people who root against them at every game, basically in the hope that they won't have to hear about it at work the next day.

Actually, I can almost guarantee that a NOTRE DAME fan will see this post and respond that their team just beat the Illini at something. :D

I really haven't noticed this shift towards ivy league "snobbery." The vast majority of young professionals here are still from the big 10 schools. The ivy league alumni clubs in Chicago are very small in comparison to NYC or even SF and LA. Most of the harvard/MIT/Princeton/Stanford/Yale people i've met in chicago worked for either citadel, mckinsey, or an elite prop shop like getco.

I'm with you on notre dame. There are very few college football teams i despise more. Watching them whine every year after getting their butt kicked by USC is truly a delight.

 

"Have a choice between working in two groups which I am indifferent between." - Could you please elaborate a little on the offers?

Early in your career ignore the location and go for the best opportunity. In a few years from now when you are trying to build wealth vs have fun Chicago would be the better choice with its lower cost of living. It does have 85% of what NYC has at 50% of the cost but with a much shittier winter.

 
Best Response
McMo:
"Have a choice between working in two groups which I am indifferent between." - Could you please elaborate a little on the offers?

Early in your career ignore the location and go for the best opportunity. In a few years from now when you are trying to build wealth vs have fun Chicago would be the better choice with its lower cost of living. It does have 85% of what NYC has at 50% of the cost but with a much shittier winter.

The summer def. makes up for the winter relative to NYC. When I was interning in downtown Chicago during the summer, my boss would bring his swimsuit with him and jog down to the beach after work. Good luck trying to do that in NYC. During the summer, the place is like a freshwater version of Miami (albeit with cooler water). Hours felt like they were a little kinder in Chicago, too, though I was in IT at the time.

Rent goes a lot further in Chicago. For what I pay to live in Hoboken in a ho-hum building, I could probably get an apartment on Grant Park that's walking distance from the CBOT (at least in the summer). Illinois has a 3% flat tax (no city tax)- it may go to 5%, but that's still half what you'd pay in NYC.

Chicago's a much more livable city if you earn more than $15K/year. It's a good place to go once you've gotten your experience somewhere else.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
McMo:
"Have a choice between working in two groups which I am indifferent between." - Could you please elaborate a little on the offers?

Early in your career ignore the location and go for the best opportunity. In a few years from now when you are trying to build wealth vs have fun Chicago would be the better choice with its lower cost of living. It does have 85% of what NYC has at 50% of the cost but with a much shittier winter.

The summer def. makes up for the winter relative to NYC. When I was interning in downtown Chicago during the summer, my boss would bring his swimsuit with him and jog down to the beach after work. Good luck trying to do that in NYC. During the summer, the place is like a freshwater version of Miami (albeit with cooler water). Hours felt like they were a little kinder in Chicago, too, though I was in IT at the time.

Rent goes a lot further in Chicago. For what I pay to live in Hoboken in a ho-hum building, I could probably get an apartment on Grant Park that's walking distance from the CBOT (at least in the summer). Illinois has a 3% flat tax (no city tax)- it may go to 5%, but that's still half what you'd pay in NYC.

Chicago's a much more livable city if you earn more than $15K/year. It's a good place to go once you've gotten your experience somewhere else.

Weather stinks in both cities and are not their selling point. As far as the "beach" is concerned, i was never a big fan of lake michigan. If i want a real beach experience, i go out to L.A.

Rent is definitely a lot cheaper here. A guy i knew who used to work at citadel lived in a sweet 2-bedroom apartment in a high-rise in the south loop, with a balcony overlooking grant park and downtown. he was paying $2800/month for it, which in NYC would get you a mediocre 1-bedroom.

 

I think the movement into the upper echelons of schools in Chicago is just the overall shift in electronic/quant trading. Gone are the days where you could be some hotshot frat-lete from a Big 10 school and start on the floor and work your way up. The kids coming in these days are much brighter and the companies are much better off. Take this thread for example, most people wouldn't blink before choosing NYC over Chicago but there are now some very respected viable shops in Chicago.

Little pigs get fed, fat pigs get slaughtered
 
mktmkr:
I think the movement into the upper echelons of schools in Chicago is just the overall shift in electronic/quant trading. Gone are the days where you could be some hotshot frat-lete from a Big 10 school and start on the floor and work your way up. The kids coming in these days are much brighter and the companies are much better off. Take this thread for example, most people wouldn't blink before choosing NYC over Chicago but there are now some very respected viable shops in Chicago.
If the focus is electronic, it looks like Chicago will probably stay dominated by the Big Ten and its strength in engineering relative to the northeastern private schools- it's just that everyone will be wearing thick-rimmed glasses and watch Dragonball Z or Star Trek at work rather than the World Cup.

The way I've seen it was that Chicago has always been dominated by pragmatism. (My Dad worked for a number of trading firms there). If you had a pet walrus who could make a lot of money by trading, half the firms on LaSalle street would hire him and line up 50 dump trucks of tuna at the end of the year. So there's room for Illinois EE grads, Wisconsin frat-letes, guys with AS's from Marshall, Walruses, heck, maybe even a math major or two from Harvard. :D

 
IlliniProgrammer:
mktmkr:
I think the movement into the upper echelons of schools in Chicago is just the overall shift in electronic/quant trading. Gone are the days where you could be some hotshot frat-lete from a Big 10 school and start on the floor and work your way up. The kids coming in these days are much brighter and the companies are much better off. Take this thread for example, most people wouldn't blink before choosing NYC over Chicago but there are now some very respected viable shops in Chicago.
If the focus is electronic, it looks like Chicago will probably stay dominated by the Big Ten and its strength in engineering relative to the northeastern private schools- it's just that everyone will be wearing thick-rimmed glasses and watch Dragonball Z or Star Trek at work rather than the World Cup.

The way I've seen it was that Chicago has always been dominated by pragmatism. (My Dad worked for a number of trading firms there). If you had a pet walrus who could make a lot of money by trading, half the firms on LaSalle street would hire him and line up 50 dump trucks of tuna at the end of the year. So there's room for Illinois EE grads, Wisconsin frat-letes, guys with AS's from Marshall, Walruses, heck, maybe even a math major or two from Harvard. :D

Illinois engineering does very well with the top Chicago prop firms and Citadel. Not surprising given that they have a top program.

Most ivy league students who want to do finance don't want to move to Chicago. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
quantum:
Aside from those who work at citadel, i don't know anyone at elite schools who turned down NYC trading jobs for Chicago.
Part of the reason a lot of 22 and 23 year old Big Ten frat-letes are now millionaires while us chumps in NYC are working two or three times as hard for 10% of the pay.

IlliniProgrammer, I really like your posts, and you're obviously very intelligent, but i can't tell if you're being facetious or serious in this thread. A lot of 22 and 23 year old big ten guys are now millionaires? That's a hyperbole if there ever was one. Sure, a few kids who went to the floor after college became very rich quickly (mainly had family connections), but those cases are anomalies. Generally speaking, top students at harvard/MIT/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/Wharton don't come to chicago. As I said earlier there are a few exceptions like citadel, mckinsey, boston consulting.

 
lingua_franca:
Chicago is much smaller, not only by size. living in new york means you've the chances to meet people from tri-state, east coast and whole world; that's whole different level.

One of the things I don't like about Chicago is that the vast majority of people are from the midwest, and a lot of them have never lived anywhere else. This is why Chicago is somewhat provincial, despite being a big city.

 
jjc1122:
One of the things I don't like about Chicago is that the vast majority of people are from the midwest, and a lot of them have never lived anywhere else. This is why Chicago is somewhat provincial, despite being a big city.
That's true, but as a whole, it's a lot easier to meet people in Chicago. One of the first things I noticed about New York is that you can't strike up conversations with random strangers quite as easily.

The second thing I noticed about NYC was that people can pay to cut in line at clubs and other places and the people waiting just put up with it like it's somehow acceptable.

 

"Maybe, but it's a heckuvalot less common in Chicago."

that's simply because there are restaurants in Chicago don't have crazy long lines as those in NYC. u will see all kinds of fugly things when competition gets fierce nuff.

 

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