I'm considering using part of the summer before b-school to learn VBA. Anyone have any experience with using VBA in banking? Is it useful at all? It's a skill I've always wanted to have and will probably plunk down the time if it is remotely relevant to my future career ambitions.
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Can't speak specifically for IB, but VBA is incredibly useful for automating repeated tasks. You will likely significantly increase your value to your future teams if you become proficient in it.
I searched the site for this yesterday and there was plenty of good stuff.
If you're lazy, the consensus was: not worth it if you're in FO, but if you really have nothing else to do, it might help you gain an advantage in select situations.
If you have nothing better to do, I think it's a good skill to learn.
I like it because it lets me understand some functions of pre-built models. I'm in no way spectacular at VBA but if it helps to understand what is going on behind the scenes.
Prior knowledge of VBA will be tremendously useful for any job with lots of Excel. One of my prior posts:
"Excel VBA for Dummies, no joke. Set yourself challenges for stuff to program. Start by making custom functions that calculate the BS price for an option given inputs; do the Greeks as well. Write a sub that will pull off price histories and graph the returns for any number of selected ticker symbols off Yahoo Finance and can be customized for period, date, etc. If you're working on Excel and think something can be automated, try to automate it. Actually trying to figure things out will teach you a lot."
This was written for someone looking into S&T but the learning principle still applies to banking.
One example of its usefulness: I like processing data visually. Right now I'm analyzing year over year changes in a company's FS. To ease my analysis, I wrote a procedure that takes my selection and colors cells differently based on percentage values, producing an instant visual heatmap of changes.
Note to undermine your point but couldn't you just use conditional formatting?
True, but setting conditional formatting in a regular manner can be kind of clunky if you need to do it more than a few times. With VBA you could (1) tweak/automate Excel's normal conditional formatting process or (2) make a color map that doesn't reply on conditional formatting.
I use the VBA to automatically skip certain cells as well..also I never really liked conditional formatting that much; can't see it helping me too much unless it's live updating data or something.
Helpful for analyst to learn Excel VBA? (Originally Posted: 01/25/2010)
Just wondering what the value of learning excel VBA programming was for an analyst. I imagine it helps to be able to run macros for repetitive tasks and pull data down automatically from database sources. Also, does it help impress your MDs? Obviously I'm looking for efficiency here, not any excel showboating.
Thanks.
Heh, PJC, if you say "macro" and "Excel" in the same sentence to ANY MD, he'll probably look at you funny and then politely ask you to get the heck out of his office.
As far as VBA goes... most banks have macros for mostly everything you need to do. Really... being able to make really basic macros can be helpful, but that's something you'll learn in training. Anything complex is really a waste of your time. There may be some differing opinions here, but I only know the most basic macro-creation (not sure if that makes sense, but you catch my drift)(what I learned in training) and I have no problem with efficiency.
The only macros I will create are to run different scenarios to update AVP charts in a merger model... Can't really think of anything else that I make my own macros for.
VBA will be little to no help to you. All the macros that you will use on a consistent basis will likely already be created.
Disagree with the above, macros can be immensely helpful with building flexible models and/or outputs. That being said, its something to help you. Macro's will not help other people understand how a model is built (in fact, most associates i work with dislike macros because it makes it difficult for them to audit a model - back when they used to do that with me) and I agree with what jimbrowngoU says - you should not bring up "plumbing" with the high level MDs.
I worked with a beast of a summer analyst who knew VBA incredibly well - what would take an "average" analyst several hours to do (screening based on databases, bulding lots of outputs based on that screen) he automated within 30 minutes and made easy to update. Very impressive. but not anything that those not involved in the making of the sausage care about.
indeed, in my experience I found using macros very helpful for streamlining menial and repetitive tasks like pulling down information from Cap IQ and getting rid of the silly logos and pictures in the hundreds of downloaded excel files.
Yeah, I was hoping to hear about some beast of a summer analyst who cut down on hours of bitch work.
No.
VBA in IB? (Originally Posted: 05/29/2010)
I have a few general questions about programing in Excel using VBA.
Will knowledge of VBA make me more marketable/ impress IB professionals during the recruiting process? Is knowledge of the language respected or will it be overlooked on my resume?
Based upon the experimentation I have already done I believe it will make me more efficient in excel but I am worried the time investment might be a waste. Am I better off spending that time networking/ sending emails/ making calls?
No. Will not help. Do a search, this has been addressed.
Just a quick note - if we keep asking people to search for information instead of replying in new threads, there will be no new threads on this site. After 4 years almost everything has been discussed in some permutation.
And being strong in VBA WILL help you with a few things - sometimes you have to do real random analysis of large packets of data that VBA can speed up. But of course its not essential to modeling, etc. aside from automating formatting processes.
Thank you for that new thread comment. I am so sick of reading "this has already been addressed blah blah blah." Circumstances change.
Maybe instead of being a lazy piece of shit you should ke18sb's advice and DO A FUCKING SEARCH.
Excuse my french.
VBA in Banking (Originally Posted: 07/02/2013)
I hear quite often the ability to create marcos in excel is an important skill in order to succed as an investment banker. I haven't find that to be the case for my banking internship. For those of you that have had to create macros can you provide an example of how it was of use to you.
polo! breh
typically ur firm will have pre-made macros (or the TTS ones) and u can use them, not really an important skill lolz
Say you find yourself copy/pasting info from a website a lot but don't like how they have their data formatted or it's just tedious in general. You create a macro to automatically parse their copy/paste data into a table that is correctly formatted for output, including creating the graph the way your boss likes it to show.
Excel/VBA-skills in Investment Banking (Originally Posted: 06/02/2015)
I'm still working on my masters in finance but i like to play around in Excel once in a while. As i want to work in finance one day i was wondering if anyone had any tips on what kind of Excel/VBA-skills is especially appreciated in IB/ER/etc. What kind of macros? What kind of formulas? What kind of specific skills?
Examples from real life, what to work on and stuff like that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
For IBD / ER, the functions we use in Excel aren't very complicated. If you have time and interest, I suggest trying your hand at doing a DCF, LBO or merger model.
how can you be doing a masters in finance and not be acquainted with excel
anyway I hear theres a lot of good videos and packages out there so maybe some one can suggest a few
I am acquainted with Excel. I think my overall level in Excel/VBA is pretty high, at least compared to my fellow students. I might have expressed myself a little bit unclear to begin with. I'm sorry about that. I was just looking for tips on specific set of skills to polish as i enjoy playing around in Excel anyway.
I already have som experience building DCF and merger models but will definitely look into that.
Excel macros at BBs (Originally Posted: 05/22/2013)
Is there a standard macro set (TTS, etc.) that is used at most BBs?
Mix of the macros from whatever training program you used plus the ones from the random info providers (i.e. FactSet has a set of macros) and any that either you or people from your team created.
Go with Macabus if you're starting out
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