How should I Acquire Knowledge

http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

^^read until you either get it or quit due to boredom

also, google: seth klarman margin of safety pdf

with a 3.96 math gpa from a target school you should just walk into interviews with your pants unzipped and ready to go. don't worry about learning anything about finance cause it won't matter, you'll get where you wanna go

If you want to work at a HF, IB orand AM are prerequisites. I also agree with the importance of knowing how to read SEC filings.

Jesus christ. 3.96 in math?

Buffett shareholder letters are a good place to start too: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

cauchymonkey:

I'm posting on this forum because I'm not sure what sources of info to read, what books to read, and how I should better understand the market. I don't want to waste my time learning bullshit. For example, I'm sure that taking several more econ classes where all we do is draw graphs and take derivatives would count as useless for finance.

Should I read the Wall Street Journal every day? Go back to personal investing? Study more financial math?

Given your background, you should have an easy time getting a wide range of jobs. I would guess that most places will push you towards doing something quantitative. You mentioned you don't want to be a 'specialized quant who just crunches numbers,' but I expect many will guide you that way. I'm biased, but I don't think taking a derivatives course would be useless for finance...many people make their careers in that field.

Books:

Pioneering portfolio management, by David Swensen: David manages the Yale endowment and he discusses how he allocates capital to various asset classes and why. This is a good place to start because it will let you see how your clients think about various investment types (equities, fixed income, private equity, absolute return, real assets) and allow you to explore investment areas further that interest you.

Fooled by randomness, by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. Critiques all models that use normal distributions and essentially talks about how much riskier the market is than most people think.

The (mis)Behavior of markets, by Benoit Mandlebrot...same vein as above

Any book by Tversky and Kahneman...all related to psychology and inherent biases that people have and the logical inconsistencies made by people based upon how questions are framed. Very interesting and can be applied in many creative ways in finance.

When Genius Failed: the story about the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, don't fall in love with your models.

I'm sure others could give you good books on valuation, but I'm not too into that, so I don't have anything there for you.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions so far! Keep them coming.

I'm going to start reading all the books some of you mentioned. Do you recommend I start trading for the learning experience? I made an account on Investopedia and am thinking about doing some paper trading.

@SirPoopsaLot

Haha when I said "derivatives" I meant it in the context of "the derivative of x^2 is 2x." In econ classes you have to do a lot of pointless calculations like that. Of course financial derivatives clearly have great importance. Sorry for being unclear!

math talent going into finance. so sad bro

For trading try howthemarketworks.com and wallstreetsurvivor.com for options trading as well, those 2 websites are good for trading

Analysis of financial statements is a top notch introductory book to financial statements. But seriously beyond that and some technical skills, (excel, SAS/R if you go that route) most employers aren't going to expect you to be the most financially literate individual as a rising junior.

For now polish your resume and interview presence, research and network with firms you're interested in, and stay abreast of the markets. Since you don't want to do IBD you're best bet is to land an internship/SA at a well respected AM firm or HF. Soak up as much knowledge as you can and grow your network. If they like you enough they will find a spot for you somewhere.

It is by the juice of sappho that thoughts acquire speed

Let's just say I wish that I were you (in a couple of ways at least).

I would probably focus on becoming proficient with excel (assuming you haven't taught yourself), prep an amazing resume to gain solid internships, and prep to be an interview stud.

Not really sure that learning hardcore financial theory is going to help you much...focus on getting placed into a solid environment first. Reading WSJ and being up to date with relevant information (90% of shit in WSJ isn't truly relevant though) and terminology is a solid place to start imo.

When you are placed in an internship (especially your first), you will not be assumed as some finance genius with a brilliant understanding of the market/industry/process. You just want to be the intern that learns fast and attains information with limited explanation, is likable (holds solid conversations and doesn't appear to be socially retarded), and is non annoying. This isn't to say you shouldn't attempt to learn concepts and processes outside of work...just try not to get ahead of yourself.

bad thread, dosen't deserve to be first paged

READ THIS WEBSITE

Damn, you must be brilliant. I'm a math physics double major with 3.5 at a target. Shit's hard, simply couldn't ace the proof/quantum stuff

Read up on finance and show some interest in the markets; your pedigree should get you the interviews. Be able to answer some basic questions like how to do a DCF, maybe have some stock picks ready, and you should be good to go.

Also, start networkign now. Email alumni that work at banks, ask them about the industry and for advice, and keep in contact with them. Your talent/brilliance is going to get attention.

3.96 at a Target? Watch msnbc, read Bloomberg, read SeekingAlpha, and you'll lose your virginity in no time.

I think some of the advice here is actually kind of bad. You don't have to worry THAT MUCH about reading every book and settling into the financial world.

The more important task is getting your first financial internship. Do you have some sort of leadership experience at your school? Cause if you don't have any, I don't think your GPA will guarentee you the interviews (I used to have a 4.0 in engineering (not a target, but still) - I did have interviews, but I also got stigmatized as a nerd that couldn't work well enough in a team).

So get leadership, and after that, start prepping for your interviews. Make friends with people who have had finance internships, and ask them for interviewing advice. Reach out to your school's alumni to get their advice. Same with finance professors at your school. And practice, practice, practice your interviews (I've never met you, but my experience has been that people will assume you're smart and hardworking - but you'll have to prove to them that you can work well in teams, communicate well, etc.)

I'd say that it's a little early to be discriminating between specific financial careers at this point. Until you have worked for a year or two, you really have no idea what you want (not to be a dick). I'd recommend you get into the finance career pipeline, which generally means going into banking after school.

Right, there's clearly a limit to how much I can learn from reading books and articles/news as opposed to actually putting things in practice or learning from an internship.

However, I also don't want to come off as too ignorant in interviews. At least my idea is to show that I'm interested by actively trying to learn more stuff.

I'm sure my gpa will be helpful for getting interviews but I don't think it'll be of any use past that point.

I'm afraid I don't understand your post. You're a math guru who wants to do interesting and challenging stuff, but doesn't want to do interesting and challenging stuff. A bit of confusion there perhaps.

If you want to go into core finance, answer this question - Are you really good with people? I understand your reluctance to become a quant - outside the algo shops, the treatment of quants leaves much to be desired IMO. However, I'm simply unsure of this middle ground between "quant" and core finance.

Would you consider an Algo shop or hedge fund? The quant space there is much more respected.

There are also some rather math heavy roles in the derivatives space in banks and the likes. If you told me more about what gives you a boner, perhaps I can add more value.

Shoot for equity research or s&t.

Best thing to do is go straight to the data and find relationships. Read as many 10-ks, graph data against eachother, measure correlations and cointegrations. Study economic history of companies and countries. Know the different products in the market.

Basically, dig up the details for anything in finance your interested in..

oo.. nice screenname btw... what math have you taken?

@couchy

Thanks! I've taken some real analysis, abstract algebra, and topology (that was tough!) most recently.

I think the advice of shooting for S&T or equity research is really good advice. You'll get better exposure to finance at a big bank then you will at some small hedge fund. You said you're not interested in IB, PWM wouldn't use a shred of your math talents, so research and S&T are what's left. You should be able to move into hedge funds from either of them. My understanding is that S&T will have a whole spectrum of positions, from non quantitative to extremely quantitative. Research on the other hand will I think give you financial modeling experience in excel, and expect you to do an awful lot of writing.

i still think based on your math background it'll be best to go after quant positions.. its not just a bunch of number crunching, youll be asked to design/improve complex models and algorithms for trading

curious if you just feel burnt out from math or just want money or what?

Any advice for non-targets who have equivalent if not better stats? I'd assume the only additional thing I could do is network in order to get the upper hand over the target kids.

@couchy : wouldn't say I'm burnt out from it. I still enjoy it and will probably take some more of it just out of interest. It's more of the fact that academia sucks... (shitty pay, politics, tenure really hard to get and takes forever, no guarantee of success unless you are some genius). I mean I'm interested in a lot of other stuff too, I'd rather try to advance my career than keep studying more and more abstract stuff, especially since I know I'm not going to make some groundbreaking discovery.

Anyways I think I've gotten a general idea of where to start. I'm going to start reading the economist, bloomberg, and other sites daily to get an idea of what's going on in the markets and the world. I'll pick a few companies and try to value them based on what I'm learning. "Analysis of financial statements" seems like a good book that hopefully I can get soon.

I guess the immediate goal is to get to the point where I don't sound completely stupid when discussing finance with someone.

I also need to start networking with friends and alumni in the financial sector. It seems like this is the most effective thing I can do right now.

Read these books:

Margin of Safety: Seth Klarman You Can be a Stock Market Genius: Joel Greenblatt Security Analysis: Ben Graham and David Dodd

Market Folly - http://www.marketfolly.com/ has some good reading lists. You'll find all the books mentioned here and more.