Wall Street Oasis - Investment Banking & Finance Community

MSF Question and Answer

TNA — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:30:33 +0000

I get a ton of emails and answer a ton of posts asking similar questions so I thought I would answer the most common ones I get here and allow others to post their questions so everyone can see them and the subsequent answers. Hope this helps.

Summer Analyst Eligibility
• The SA position is really structured for undergraduate students. The whole reason undergraduates go for a SA position is because they aren’t ready to work full time. If you are in a one year masters program is really doesn’t make much sense to try for an SA spot when you are eligible for FT analyst recruiting.

Now if you feel that you need internship experience in order to be more competitive then your best bet is to look for an unpaid internship or something off cycle. This will give you FO finance type experience, increase your knowledge and something you can do during the school year thereby not making you ineligible for full time positions.

Does this mean you can’t apply for a SA gig? No.

USV Banked 5,000% on Tumblr. Or Did They?

Edmundo Braverman — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:14:21 +0000

Fred Wilson is a legendary venture capitalist; arguably the best in the game today. He's such a visionary that it wasn't hard to believe when PrivCo announced that Union Square Ventures netted a whopping 5,000% return on their Tumblr investment. What was harder to believe (or maybe I'm just jealous) was what the takeover meant for Tumblr employees in dollars and cents:

The company's first 10 employees will receive an average of $6.2 million in cash; the first 30 will receive an average of $3.3 million in cash, and the rest of the 178 employees will each receive $371,000.

Tumblr founder David Karp, 26, walked away with over $250 million after dropping out of high school to work on the project. Fred Wilson reacted to closing the all-cash deal with Yahoo! with his typical class and humility, stating, "You can count on it — when a deal works out spectacularly everyone involved will take credit for it. This behavior is particularly annoying to the entrepreneurs who put the sweat, blood, and tears into the Company."

But did USV actually make a 5,000% return?

Well deserved thank you to WSO!

streetwannabe — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:00:59 +0000

Afternoon monkeys,

I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone on this sight who has given me good, and sometimes harsh advice. I just graduated from a very small private school with a 3.5 GPA, decent internship experiences and hardly any connections. I've had quite a few interviews, always ending up getting dinged in the final rounds and have also applied for probably somewhere around 500 jobs over the past year. The constant rejection was very disheartening, however I've finally landed a full time gig as a Credit Research Associate at a large asset management firm!

Transferring from London to NYC

thestockwalker — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:00:04 +0000

Hi everyone

I was wondering the other day if I ever make it to the S&T division of a BB, how's the chance I get transferred to the US (preferably to NYC), without having a green card and stuff? Is it done through some sponsorship anyway?

Thanks!

My Biggest Career Mistake to Date: Prestige

bankerella — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:30:17 +0000

Mod note: Best of Bankerella - this was originally posted 10/1/12

I occasionally get PMed by people at colleges I’ve never heard of before, asking if they have a shot at IBD.

Folks, why IBD? The finance world is broad and varied, and there are a million ways to make a buck. Why pick the one that’s going to be hardest for you in your situation? There are mutual fund companies, asset management companies all over the damn place. Hedge funds. Auxiliary businesses. Those folks will look beyond the name of your institution and your GPA in the hunt for quality. Why knock on the door of the one section of the industry that has built a massive recruiting machine designed to keep you out?

5 Quirks of Chinese Colleagues

NiuShi — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:00:00 +0000

Every office has their winners, but here are just a few of the goofy things you might encounter while working with Chinese colleagues. Those with China experience, definitely sound off at the bottom here.

1) Now while I’m sure what I eat in the office gives my colleagues room for pause as well, there are a few things that should never happen. Probably number one on my list thus far is eating hot dogs on a stick and milk for breakfast.

A close second is eating spicy peppers on the hottest days of the summer, both so that they sweat to cool off and also so they breathe more heavily so their mouth cools down too. It’s all about balancing their Qi, I am told. Which brings me to number 2.

2) There is no need for a Qi or FengShui App on your smartphone to help you with your work. If you are following your Qi app that is telling you to drink chrysanthemum tea in the late morning because your inner temperature is too cool, I’m going to go ahead and argue that you’ve got a shedload more to study about this whole Qi thing before you call yourself an expert.

Why You DON'T Leave Banking for B School Just to Come Right Back...

rufiolove — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:59 +0000

This is the reaction any analyst who has ever worked in banking has when you say you want to leave banking for business school then come back as a post b school associate...

Equity Risk Premiums (ERP) and Stocks: Bullish or Bearish Indicator

Aswath Damodaran — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:51 +0000

If you have been following my blog postings, you are probably aware that I have an obsession with equity risk premiums (ERP), and have done an annual survey paper on the topic every year since 2008 (with the 2013 update here). I also post a monthly update for the ERP for the S&P 500 at the start of the month on my website. As a consequence, my attention was drawn to a post by Fernando Duarte and Carlo Rosa, economists at the Fed in New York, on the topic.

They argue that equity risk premiums are at historic highs, primarily because the US treasury rates are low, and note that these high equity risk premiums are a precursor to good stock returns in the future. I don’t disagree with their authors that equity risk premiums are high, relative to history and that the low risk free rate is in large part responsible these large premiums, but I am less sanguine about using the ERP as a market timing device, especially at this time in history.

Rand Paul GOES OFF at Apple Hearing

Edmundo Braverman — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:30:00 +0000

This is just fantastic. After sitting through Carl Levin and John McCain spewing a bunch of nonsense about how Apple doesn't pay enough taxes (despite being the #3 taxpaying company in America behind ExxonMobil and Chevron), Rand Paul lit them up about what a travesty it was to blame Apple for doing the same thing every American taxpayer does, for how our convoluted tax code actually chases money overseas, and how Congress owes Apple an apology for wasting their time. He then pointed out just how bad our corporate tax code really is and proposed a permanent 5% repatriation tax on cash held overseas. This is excellent stuff:

Upcoming WSO Meetups: Boston TONIGHT

AndyLouis — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:20:32 +0000

Boston, Wed May 22nd, 6PM, Beantown Pub

Shanghai: Friday May 24th, 7PM, La Brasserie

Hong Kong: Friday May 24th, 730PM, BISOUS

NYC: June 7th (***NEW DATE***), 7PM Galway Hooker

Chicago: June 13th, 8PM, Midtown Kitchen (upstairs)

tbd June: London, Singapore (we need a host)

What wallet and watch are you using?

Emo_Rhino — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:00:16 +0000

My friend in the industry is asking me to get a new watch and a new wallet to suit the financial industry image. He says please get a branded wallet and watch. Currently I am using a casio g-shock and a wallet that costs less than $100 given by friends on my birthday.

He says image is very important and for watches, he asked me to look at swiss watches like omega and for wallets, consider bottega. I looked at their prices online and was like wow.

Is image really that important? What wallets and watches are you guys wearing?

Vacation Days

CashCow — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:00:44 +0000

I was surprised that my offer letter said that I will get several weeks of vacation days.

Is this for real, or would I anger people by actually using these days?

Apple Tax

UFOinsider — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:52:26 +0000

I don't know why I find this funny:

Senate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.
A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

From "Senate investigators: Apple sheltered $44 billion from taxes"

What do you think?

2013 Bonus Season

ayoayo — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:35:39 +0000

So what do you guys think? Fees have been revived a little bit in the LTM, particularly with the huge deals in Q1'13. Are we going to see an increase from the weak bonuses of last year?

Q&A With a Buy Side Analyst at Real Estate Investment & Development Firm

SHB — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:44:24 +0000

Hi Everyone,

I read a lot of these forums a couple years back and they helped considerably in terms of realistic expectations about day to day life as an analyst. I was hoping to return the favor by answering a few questions (if anyone has any) about life as an analyst at a buy side real estate firm.

A little background: I work for a privately owned real estate investment and development firm. We have approximately 5.5 billion in assets. Our main asset classes (should be no surprise) are industrial, multi-family, and office (first tier city and suburban).

I've worked here for a year. I'm a part of a team of 4 people who handle analysis and due diligence of every acquisition, refinance and disposition. To give you a sense of our flow in the past 4 months we've closed on approximately 200 million in refinancing, 150 million in acquisitions and 100 million in dispositions. I've been fortunate enough to be in a position where I see a ton of deal flow.

"Unschool Yourself"

In The Flesh — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I haven’t watched a non-007 movie in almost a year, and over the weekend I finally broke that streak by watching “Dirty Harry” and “Magnum Force.”

Needless to say, the movies had an effect other than making me wish that I was a cop working in 1970s San Francisco. Dirty Harry extols the virtue of playing by your own rules, even if it means clashing with your superiors (granted, Detective Callahan’s boss was a crook too, so that makes it a bit easier). As Dirty Harry says many times, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

But limitations are exactly what most of our educational backgrounds seem to be forcing on us, as James Altucher writes in this old blog post of his: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/03/unschool-your...