New to AM, a few questions
Hey guys:
I am a first year MBA student at a top 20(non target) program. I was originally planning on going into corporate finance (am committed to a corp fin internship this summer). Anyway, this semester I have been taking classes in investment theory, options/futures, derivatives, etc and am beginning to think about Asset Management as an option.
I guess my question is what to do from here forward if I want to make that a reality at the end of graduation, more specifically:
Resources to improve my knowledge of AM (besides the obvious WSJ, etc.....maybe books/sites?)
I do not have a pre MBA finance background........am i SOL in that case?
any other info you guys think that will be helpful would be awesome. Thanks guys
What specifically do you want to do in asset management?
Sorry I was so vague..............I think I would like to move towards portfolio management for a mutual fund
That's kinda like saying, I'd like to move towards being an executive at a public company.
So you want to run money at a mutual fund, presumably equity...i.e. to pick stocks? If you're not already doing it, most people get there by being promoted from analyst at said mutual funds. I'd say you have a very small chance of joining as an analyst at a mutual fund at this point in the game. Most people who land spots out of MBA in these roles have prior related experience, or have been doing it on their own for several years, and they have really gone after it. If you'd be satisfied with more client related portfolio management, or asset allocation, then you could join the private wealth management group at a bank, or an independent adviser, or an investment consultant, etc. These groups will hire MBAs and they are less competitive than buyside analyst jobs.
Read some investment books, start managing your own money, and if you really love it you could probably find a way to make it happen.
Interesting AM-related books: The Intelligent Investor (Zweig's updated version), The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, When Genius Failed, Confessions of a Street Addict (even though I can't stand Cramer it's a fun read).
You can try to network while doing the corp fin internship. Presumably the company has a lot of cash or pension fund money they're investing with a large manager. Find out who it is and try to talk to the account manager that works with your company.
Registering and passing the December CFA level 1 would show at least some commitment to AM when you're applying in the fall/winter. A lot of your MBA coursework should carry over to the exam.
Thanks for your replies........i was wondering if any of you guys currently work in AM and could give me a general look at how you like it, what its like day to day, etc.
Thanks again
You need to make friends with people like me. Also am is not the traditional path to pm.
What exactly are the traditional path(s) to PM? Trading or research?
AM is a huge industry don't limit yourself to mutual funds or mutual fund companies. If i-bankers wanna go BB, in AM BB = Blackrock (NY and in SF= BGI/iShares) , PIMCO, SSgA, BNY Mellon and more specialized companies: GSAM, MS, MSCI etc..
Dude is right, start the CFA program, MBA's are not as respected as CFA designation in AM -- unless you went to top 5 schools. But in my opinion even then, investment knowledge lags behind that of CFA program.
Example of things to focus on - there are more:
CAPM / MPT / Mean Variance optimization, i.e. what is correlation and how does this contribute to overall portfolio risk vs return? .
You are a fund manager not really a stock picker - you manage to a mandate not much discretion there. So you want to focus on risk management both investment and operational. i.e. tracking risk for passive mandates,
3.Benchmark construction - who are the index providers? what do you do with corporate actions?
Trading - what are types of cost of trading/rebalancing? i.e. explicit, implicit, opportunity ? what are some metrics to benchmark your executions? VWAP, IS etc...
Return calculation - time weighted return. IRR, type calc)
These items applies to active funds, but again they are still benchmark to some index i.e S&P 500, MSCI EAFE etc..
few things to think about
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