How to handle getting an offer to come back?

brisbane — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:03:05 -0400

I'm a rising junior with a couple weeks to go in my internship at a top Canadian bank in Toronto. I'm reasonably sure I'm going to get an offer to come back -- at my mid-term performance review, I was told that people on the desk were "glowing" about me and literally had nothing bad to say. furthermore, they've told me that I'm much better than the last intern they had, who they are bringing back for a co-op or FT position. The group head has been a lot nicer to me these days, and a couple associates/VPs asked me if I would come back if they offered me.

Power Trading

brisbane — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:22:04 -0400

Can someone explain to me what these guys do? Trading "power" isn't intuitive for me.

I feel like my group head doesn't like me...

brisbane — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:35:58 -0400

Anybody have experience with this kind of situation? It's a pretty small group, and I think that I get along well with and do good work for everyone else in the group...but ultimately, it's going to be the group head's call as to whether or not I get invited back. It's already five weeks in and he barely knows me -- three weeks ago, he said he'd take me for lunch sometime and that has yet to materialize.

I just feel like I rub him the wrong way for some reason, despite the fact that I have a good attitude, am the first in and last out, and always asking what more work I can do or if I can help out on any other projects.

"Do you have capacity?"

brisbane — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:46:28 -0400

Ever hear this at your bank? I think it's hilarious.

No, we're not human beings who are "busy" or "not busy." Instead we're machines who "have capacity."

Was this dumb (Personal investing while at work)?

brisbane — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:39:42 -0400

I have a personal online trading account...up until a few weeks ago, it was managed by my dad in trust for me; he handed it over to me. It was heavily invested in financials (Actually, 100% in financials) that had been in the portfolio for years.

Understandably, I was not very happy with the returns my dad had been "generating." So I dumped about $30k worth of the portfolio to move into ETFs.

What's the problem? I'm summering in debt origination, and 70% of our business comes from FIs...including the two banks I just sold off.

Before I made the trade, I read our Chinese Walls and Employee Trading documents/rulebooks. I spoke to compliance and fully outlined what I was going to do, requested pre-clearance on the trades and CCed my group head with the pre-clearance.

Advice on switching groups from one summer to the next?

brisbane — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:50:32 -0400

I'm a rising junior currently interning in debt origination. I get to work on the trading floor, so my job gives me a look into some banking aspects and some trading aspects. I've only been working for a week, but I can tell that trading would interest me more as a career rather than what I'm doing now.

I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on switching into trading for next summer, especially if I get an offer to return to my group. We work pretty closely with the traders (we have to keep each other updated on pricing), so I have the opportunity to watch them and maybe ingratiate myself with them. On the other hand, I'm pretty intimidated by them -- they seem really busy all the time, and I don't want to annoy them.

Swap Rates/Spreads

brisbane — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:52:17 -0400

I'm interning on a DCM desk this summer. We deal a lot with "pricing sheets" that have a lot of info on swap rates and spreads. I was wondering if someone could help me understand it.

I understand what a swap rate is -- it's the fixed-rate that must be paid so that the swap has an NPV of zero (i.e. I'm a company paying LIBOR+50bps, so I enter into a swap where I receive LIBOR and pay x%...so the x% is the swap rate).

However, I don't really understand from where it's derived or much else about it.

Firstly, I don't get where that swap rate is coming from in the first place. How could there be just one swap rate per maturity when companies can be paying all sorts of different floating rates?

The pricing sheet lists a "swap benchmark" which is just a Treasury bond of a certain tenor (or an interpolation). But I don't really understand what that has to do with the swap rate. I feel like I'm missing something basic here.

My First Day

brisbane — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:00:55 -0400

Had my first day today, working in DCM. It was pretty cool; my desk is right on the trading floor. The day went by pretty quickly but so far my tasks seem pretty simple -- the bulk of the work seems to be to copy/paste info and send it out as a market update. Can someone here encourage me that eventually, with hard work, I'll be given more meaningful things to do?

I was tasked with listening to a conference call and taking notes, so that was pretty cool.

Disastrous semester...

brisbane — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:36:24 -0400

So I'm a sophomore at a target. I have an internship with RBC in Toronto this summer on their DCM desk -- that's the good news. The bad news is that my semester went pretty awfully: My overall GPA went from a 3.25 to a 3.05 (which, for resume purposes, means it's gone from a 3.3 to a 3.1).

My questions are twofold:

1) Does my GPA matter at all in getting an offer to return to RBC next summer as a junior (and then hopefully as FT after that)?

2) If I could get my GPA back up to a 3.2-3.3 (possible given my course selection is much wiser next semester...this semester I took four very tough classes with a 50hr/week EC), how much does work experience like mine help in getting at least some interviews in Jan/Feb? I'm a decent networker too.

Thanks. I know this sounds really worry-wartish, but I'd like some peace of mind (or at least something resembling a definitive answer/consensus).

JP Morgan Capital Corporation

brisbane — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:21:56 -0400

Can anyone give me more info on them? There is close to nothing out there on the net about them. All I know is that they have an office in Chicago and that they make investments in alternative energy sources.