Summers / First Years, how do you spend your time?

For all current summer interns or junior associates, I am curious to know a rough breakout of your typical day. I have seen some "day in the life" posts from higher up analysts, but nothing for junior associates or summer interns. I'm interning at an HF (and considering pursuing an FT sell-side research role) but am a bit clueless when it comes to typical equity research work for the junior levels.

Particularly when you are not working on an earnings note, how much time do you spend on building models / going through company filings / preparing investor presentation material / reading general industry material? Also how many companies does your team cover (if you are on the equity side of research).

Thanks!

 
Best Response

Junior equity research analyst here

Typical breakout of my day (non-earnings): 6:30 am: Wake up, get ready. Check email to see if my boss or other teammates sent around anything overnight that I need to review. Check any press releases or SEC filings that went out in the early a.m. 7:15-8:30 am: Help the team write a morning research piece on news-flow and send out to clients. 8:30-10 am: Listen to the company-wide morning meeting where analyst pitch their ideas to sales, catch up on news, start making modeling adjustments if news-flow affects my coverage list, get the first of 5-6 coffees for the day and BS with the other juniors. 10-10:30 am: Team morning meeting. Go over agendas and deliverables for the day. Try not to ask too many stupid questions. 10:30-9/10 PM: Split between the following: Modelling, write reports, complete random tasks/projects for my senior (which happen often), put together marketing books if he is about to travel, talk on the phone with sales and clients for those that are interested in my coverage list names (and hope the client doesn't spot a F-up in my models), call up investor relations and/or talk to management of the companies I cover.

During earnings, I come in an hour earlier and stay an hour or two later. Typically leave a few hours after market close on Friday and work from home if need-be on weekends.

I would say that I spend 70% of my time at work reading. Press releases, 10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, other SEC filings, investor decks, news articles, industry primers, general news-flow, reports on companies in the same general industry, etc. The remaining 30% would be split between writing and modelling. Time spent modelling can depend on how comfortable you are with the model. If it's something you created, you spend less time making changes because you know how everything flows and you can explain every number. If it is a model that was passed down to you, it can take twice as long. Same with writing reports, although you speed up with both as you gain experience.

My five person team (sometimes including an intern) covers ~30-40 companies at anytime and the list often changes due to M&A, IPOs, no client interest, etc. Generally, the 3-4 juniors split up the list and the senior looks at all the notes and models we create. Many other teams are different in their operations.

 

And in your first couple years, when you do get the chance to leave work you spend it one of three ways: 1) Working out so you don't become obese from sitting at a desk for 14+ hours a day, 2) Studying for licensing exams or the CFA exams, or 3) taking work home with you and trying to get a better understanding of your companies and your team's entire coverage list, macro themes, industry trends, etc.

 

To be honest, the first six months were pretty rough, but I think it will be like that in any front office role. There were many times I would leave work thinking "Wow, I'm so stupid." after messing up a model or assignment. You will have your fair share of screw-ups because you are essentially just tossed into the deep end of the pool and expected to start swimming. Some lessons, projects, and tasks are learned simply through doing it the wrong way because your seniors may not have ever done it (they've relied on younger guys that have left or moved on). You have a huge learning curve and you typically do not have a training program like bankers do. Your first one or two earnings seasons (if you are given coverage) will be a complete miserable shitshow. Inheriting someone else's model and being expected to model the last two quarters of earnings and adjust for guidance and industry trends can be a nightmare as many young guys don't build sustainable models (ex. not leaving comments, footnotes, and having terrible formulas and assumptions that may be hidden). Getting called out by a client or investor relations for publishing something wrong, no matter how minuscule will upset your senior and shit rolls downhill.

I would say that after the first six months, when I was pretty miserable (thanks in part to the CFA exams), it started to get better. You notch some wins on tedious work (random projects, marketing books), start to become somewhat useful, and you gain your senior's trust. You learn more about the industry and begin talking and thinking intelligently about the strategy of the companies you cover and how macro events will influence them. You are given real responsibility on modelling companies and writing research reports and talking to clients.

The best part is modelling and forming a thesis on something that goes against consensus and nailing the call. You make your boss happy, you likely increase your bonus and status as someone who sort of knows what they're doing, and you look smart to S&T and clients. Hearing a client say "I really appreciate you taking the time and offering me this insight on ABC company and XXX industry" is an awesome thing when you are in your young-mid 20s and that person is probably 40+ and managing millions of bucks. From talking with friends that are in banking, my job sounds a lot better, although it may pay less. They're making pitchbooks the entire time, while I'm pitching investment ideas and talking with CFOs of companies and hedge fund/PMs at large asset managers and getting to pick their brain. Pretty awesome for being a young-gun.

You get used to the hours in the first month or so. What would I be doing outside of work anyways during the week if my hours were a bit shorter? Watching TV, playing video games, getting drunk and fatter? Not like I have time for a girlfriend that lasts longer than one night anyway. I feel that the first few years are going to suck regardless, but the sacrifice I put in now will give me a higher quality of life in a few years when I get promoted/move into a higher paying & lower-hour requiring role. I enjoy the work now and like to go home smarter than I walked into work each day.

 
Mr. Skilling:

To be honest, the first six months were pretty rough, but I think it will be like that in any front office role. There were many times I would leave work thinking "Wow, I'm so stupid." after messing up a model or assignment. You will have your fair share of screw-ups because you are essentially just tossed into the deep end of the pool and expected to start swimming. Some lessons, projects, and tasks are learned simply through doing it the wrong way because your seniors may not have ever done it (they've relied on younger guys that have left or moved on). You have a huge learning curve and you typically do not have a training program like bankers do. Your first one or two earnings seasons (if you are given coverage) will be a complete miserable shitshow. Inheriting someone else's model and being expected to model the last two quarters of earnings and adjust for guidance and industry trends can be a nightmare as many young guys don't build sustainable models (ex. not leaving comments, footnotes, and having terrible formulas and assumptions that may be hidden). Getting called out by a client or investor relations for publishing something wrong, no matter how minuscule will upset your senior and shit rolls downhill.

I would say that after the first six months, when I was pretty miserable (thanks in part to the CFA exams), it started to get better. You notch some wins on tedious work (random projects, marketing books), start to become somewhat useful, and you gain your senior's trust. You learn more about the industry and begin talking and thinking intelligently about the strategy of the companies you cover and how macro events will influence them. You are given real responsibility on modelling companies and writing research reports and talking to clients.

The best part is modelling and forming a thesis on something that goes against consensus and nailing the call. You make your boss happy, you likely increase your bonus and status as someone who sort of knows what they're doing, and you look smart to S&T and clients. Hearing a client say "I really appreciate you taking the time and offering me this insight on ABC company and XXX industry" is an awesome thing when you are in your young-mid 20s and that person is probably 40+ and managing millions of bucks. From talking with friends that are in banking, my job sounds a lot better, although it may pay less. They're making pitchbooks the entire time, while I'm pitching investment ideas and talking with CFOs of companies and hedge fund/PMs at large asset managers and getting to pick their brain. Pretty awesome for being a young-gun.

You get used to the hours in the first month or so. What would I be doing outside of work anyways during the week if my hours were a bit shorter? Watching TV, playing video games, getting drunk and fatter? Not like I have time for a girlfriend that lasts longer than one night anyway. I feel that the first few years are going to suck regardless, but the sacrifice I put in now will give me a higher quality of life in a few years when I get promoted/move into a higher paying & lower-hour requiring role. I enjoy the work now and like to go home smarter than I walked into work each day.

Excellent write-up. The last sentence though - if only I could say the same thing. There are definitely days when you're stuck with incredibly tedious task - but somebody's got to do it. Normally, that doesn't necessarily make you smarter when you walk outside of the office. In fact, can arguably drop your IQ by a point or two.

 

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