What do oil traders make? A lawsuit against BP sheds some light...

devin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:26:09 -0400

Platts: The Barrel
Suit against BP helps answer a question: what do traders make?

There are plenty of fascinating tales in a recent lawsuit filed against BP by a former trader, Alison Myers. But it's the dollar signs that have everyone talking.

Myers filed the suit in late June against BP. The suit was filed against BP America, which is located in Naperville, Ill., so it is filed in the US District Court for the northern district of Illinois.

The primary charge in the suit is one of sexual discrimination. According to the suit, Myers joined BP in the UK in the mid 1990's, and moved to the Illinois office in September 2000, where she traded West African crude. In trader parlance, she worked for the WAF "book."

to math or not to math

devin — Sat, 26 May 2007 12:42:36 -0400

so i'm concentrating in finance and statistics now... but i can also get a degree in mathematics if I take about 4 more classes my senior year (thanks to the fact that statistics courses also happen count as math electives). I'll need to take two semesters of algebra, another semester of analysis, and an elective (thinking about geometric topology...)

It's a lot of math for someone who isn't *that* well-versed in proof techniques... I've taken one semester of analysis and that's it, and these classes are going to be pretty heavy on that. either way, math is something that really appeals to me, and i would almost certainly enjoy these classes. I just don't know if it's too much to handle for my senior year.

RenTec Resume

devin — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:20:41 -0400

from our friends at nuclear phynance:

http://www.nuclearphynance.com/User%20Files/1462/Rentec%20Resume.pdf

simply stunning. from community college to this!

withdrawing from a class (a big fat W on the transcript)

devin — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:08:47 -0500

hey, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I was just at an exam where I fucked up immensely on an easy test because I misread the question. This is a class that's not curved, and because of this exam, the highest grade I could get in the class is a 85 which equates to a B (although based on the ease of the course, I could very well get this score)

I'm just wondering if it's worth withdrawing from this class as a result because of the effect it might have on my cumulative GPA (which is high enough to be dropped a fair number by a B or B- in this class). This was supposed to be my "easy A" that was going to buffer the harder finance and math classes I'm taking this semester and I fucked up. I'm still reeling from how badly I did, so maybe I'll come to my senses later, but the reason I think I should get a W is

trading at oil companies

devin — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:17:44 -0500

This is purely to satisfy a personal curiosity, but I was wondering what it's like to trade for a large oil company like BP or Shell... I imagine that a lot of it would be purely market making, but does it often lead to better opportunities elsewhere (like, say, with a hedge fund or a bank)? I heard that BP has a training period of almost 3 years, and that afterwards your salary is still only around 60K with a measly 10% bonus--how does this number scale with experience?

biggest mistake of your life re: college

devin — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 03:06:04 -0500

what was the dumbest shit that you did in college, the kind of shit that you still regret to this day?

Mine was taking seven classes my first semester because I thought it would give me an edge above the other kids. Believe me when I say my GPA was fucking awful then, thank god it was the first semester.

another thing I really regret was choosing wharton over MIT. I know that this was somet

should I play up something I did in high school?

devin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:28:24 -0500

I go to a target school with in a target major, but one of the coolest things I've ever done was develop and run an affiliate-marketing website in high school--think freeIpods--that at its peak earned me about 60K in one month. The site was maintained during the my junior and senior years and definitely helped me get into college, but I don't know if it's the type of thing I can keep taking advantage of while I'm looking for an internship or a job.

tell me about quants

devin — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:56:03 -0400

I keep hearing the word thrown around here but without any clear delineations of what exactly a quant does, other than the vague description of them being involved in "mathematical modeling". So I hope someone can answer some questions of mine:

- What level of mathematics is necessary for their jobs? I imagine most of it is statistics as I can hardly imagine the need for Real Analysis or Algebra in applied situations.