Has anyone gone through the interview for the Louis Dreyfus Commodities Trading Program?

I was told there will be business cases during the interview - does anyone know what exactly this entails?

I'm including both BB S&T and prop trading. This is obviously purely anecdotal, based on what i have seen during 4 years in the industry.

1. Wharton
2. MIT
3. NYU Stern
4. Columbia
5. Stanford
6. Princeton
7. UChicago
8. Dartmouth
9. Harvard
10. Carnegie Mellon

Hello,

I'm from a non-target and had to do a lot of networking to get the BB S&T internship that I was lucky enough to get. Obviously, I didn't get that many interviews and no interviews that weren't through networking. This being said, I was curious if I should expect more interviews (without networking) when it comes to FT recruiting or will I still have to do a lot of networking to get my foot in the door?

Thank You

Why do the BBs and institutions seem to have more derivative traders than pure stock traders? I currently am doing proprietary trading, and noticed how my friends from HS/college who did trading pro at one point were NOT trading stocks. Is this going to be a problem for me if I try to exit?

I am currently working as a junior exotic trader. At my stage, i feel i am doing a lot support work rather than trading structured notes, also the learning curve on the exotic desk is very slow, and rather than taking prop positions, it is a business of hedging risks. Sometimes I feel a little confused about the future.

I want to know what are the exit opportunities for juniors like me? Or it is better to accumulate more experiences then moving to another sell-side firm? Please could anyone give some advise?Thank you all!

Hi guys!

So I emailed one of the alumni who is the MD of this middle-market investment banking firm asking for a summer internship and he asked me to come to his office for a coffee.

How should I prepare myself for the meeting and what should I expect?

I am a sophomore and have only one previous finance experience in trading.

I keep on coming across job posts for "Equity Proprietary Trader" at Hold Brothers, and was hoping someone had some insight on working there. Are these guys legit, or are they one of those shops that are just after you paying a few thousand bucks for some lousy training program. Overall reputation?

I've never worked in anything banking/trading related so I'm trying to get a sense of what the process will be like. I understand the whole first one in last one out mentality, but I assume people aren't showing up before the time they're told on day 1 correct? Also are SA's given their own desks/cubicles to work at or are we just sort of lumped into open tables or spaces? Finally, I've read that we are given laptops, (though usually crappy ones) I assume we're not allowed to bring our own?

Are they day- traders? How long is the holding period, minutes, hours, days, months?

I understand that when they trade for clients, the holding period has to be very quick because the client wants their securities as fast as possible. But for prop traders, do they have a required holding period?

I work for one of the major oil companies as an FP&A analyst for one of the trade groups in the Commercial organization. I have an interview lined up with one of the major pure physical trading shops (think Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Glencore, etc.) as a risk analyst doing PnL for a commodity group. I think I have a good chance at landing the job but I am not sure if I should leave my current situation or not.

My ultimate goal is HF at some point. Would such a move make sense? Would it help me in any way land that HF gig quicker?

Hey Everyone,

Does anyone have any insights on Goldman Sach's interest rates desk?

I was looking to find out more about the culture there and what qualities they look for so as to get a feel for how to prepare for an interview (for both sales and trading sides).

Looking through their website the description of the group seemed pretty vague. I'm familiar with S&T already and have a general idea about interest rates desks (but it's not an area I currently work in).

This would be for full-time hiring.

Thanks!

I am in the process of getting background checked, but did not get a contingent offer from the firm. They told me they would make a decision by end of this month.

I just wanted to ask if it makes any sense for employers to check all shortlisted candidates before extending an offer?

Why do experienced/accomplished traders work for a firm when they can work on their own and make more profit?

[I am a sophomore in the process of learning more about financial services industry. Please be cooperative if this comes off as naive. Thank you all for your responses.]

Would structured products be easier to get into than money markets for someone who is NOT a quant?

Currently working in Prime Brokerage Product Control, possible to move to FO from this position?

Can anyone hear speak to the reputation/ professional value (perceived or otherwise) of the University of Connecticut's MS in Financial Risk Management? The school advertises as though the program is successful at placing grads in trading roles on Wall Street? I'm military officer weighing this program against a tradition MBA because its shorter and MUCH cheaper. I'd be interested in hearing thoughts.

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone knew what to expect in a Trading Associate interview at Bridgewater? Any clue what the tests are like? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Best,

I work at a prop shop in fixed income and am looking to make the jump. This is non-algo, non-quant discretionary trading. A few reasons:

- The prop trading approach (day-trading/scalping only) is getting tedious, and there's not enough depth. No exposure to any fixed income derivatives (no options, let alone swap/agency space). Just optimizing an ever-dwindling scalp.

- I fear for the future of non-algo trading. My job might be gobbled up by algos in a few years (months?).

- No surprise here, I'm not killing it. I'm making money, but not enough to sacrifice networking thru clients/exit opps/broader market exposure by staying.

I'm a bit new to the entire algorithmic trading scene and I wanted to know if there is a major difference between these two roles other than what I think below:

The trader - who looks at market trends and researches the markets
The developer - who actually writes the code for the algorithms

OR are the above people actually one job altogether and the developer needs to know both trading and coding, or vice versa?

Also, if they are separate roles, which one pays more? And is it possible to do both?

Thanks.

For a prop firm like FNYS that pays you a salary the first year during training, and then gives you a $1MM book the following year without a salary, with 50% profit split, is a $0.01/share commission too high?

Assuming you use that $1MM to trade intraday, the commission expense can really rack up.... I know most prop firms you can negotiate commissions to around $0.003/share.

So my question is, with this structure, the firm makes a ton of profit just from your number of trades, rather than solely on the profit split.

For the trader himself, seems tough to make a profit at the end of the day after subtracting penny/share commission and bloomberg/desk fees.

Any prop traders that can advise on this? Thanks

I'm wondering, as I'm about to take the series 56 exam, how long did anyone here who took it take in terms of studying? Also, given the sheer amount of stuff on it (it has everything from options hedging/income/fx options to stocks, rules, at least 500+ pages in Pass Perfect), will future employers see it as a sign of being well versed?

I recently graduated and am in transition from working shitty part time jobs that are unreliable and trying to find an entry level position as a financial analyst.

During my time in college though, I was exposed to precious metals, primarily silver and I found that I could trade it on FOREX and avoid all those ridiculous commissions trading with a broker. Well I made a crapload of money with little to no experience in a months and a half time.

I really enjoyed trading on the FOREX ... Having an account with Gain Capital gave me exposure to a free subscription to E-signal charting.

I'm quite interested in the buy-side of Wall Street however, my issue is that I have a low GPA (3.05). Granted I still have a year to improve it and I go to the most prestigious school in Canada. However, which realm of finance would be least picky about GPAs?

Equity Research, S&T, Private Banking, Asset Management, etc.

Hopefully I could get some feedback. Feel free to rank accordingly. I have a passion for markets and I would love to be involved in one of these fields.