Monday @Mentions March 17, 2014

Thread of the Week:

Thread of the Week this week goes to @"BOTT1702" with his thread What I Look For When Hiring Junior Traders. This informative post gave great insight into the skills you should sharpen if you want to land a trading gig, and for the effort it earned 9 Silver Bananas, 7 Facebook Likes, and 5 Tweets. Like a boss.

Comment of the Week:

@TNA brought down the house this week with his pull-no-punches thoughts on real estate and other wealth traps in his comment on the thread The Fallacy of Homeownership as a Vehicle for Wealth Creation by @"jankynoname". I couldn't agree more with his sentiments, and his comment earned him 10 Silver Bananas. Check it out.

Caption Contest Winner:

This week's Caption Contest Winner was @"B4SH" with his caption Investment Bacon Division. The caption earned him 5 Silver Bananas and a WSO T-shirt.

Career Counselor:

@"Marcus_Halberstram" did yeoman's work breaking down the various nuances of private equity investing in his comment on Blackstone PE vs. other firms by @"youngandhopeful". His comment earned him 7 Silver Bananas and the gratitude of a primate nation.

The Truth Hurts:

@"SSits" put it succinctly when posed the question by @"lvlflv" about fishing off the company pier in the threadDating a co-worker: "I dated a co-worker. 12 years later, she's my wife. ie this can only end in unhappiness." True dat. The pithy comment brought in 7 Silver Bananas. Runner up in this category has to go to @"Generals2" in his response to @"Fmlanalyst"'s thread about what I can only assume was an unplanned pregnancy going into her FT gig when he asked Have to ask - do you find it ironic that you're working in risk management? That's good humor.

Most Active Monkeys:

@"UFOinsider" and @"TNA" led the charge this week with 109 and 107 banana points, respectively. Everyone else was in double digits. I think I saw a tumbleweed blow through here.

New WSO Certified Users:

I wanted to take the space here to thank and congratulate the new Certified Users from the past week. Welcome to the club. Some of these are new members, but all have confirmed that they work in the indicated industry at the level selected on their profile. All Certified Users have a gold star next to their usernames when posting in the forums, so you all know which sources you can trust the most. As WSO Certified Users, they get i) 3 months free to the WSO Job Board ($45 Value), ii) access to the private Certified User chat room to network with other professionals (priceless) and iii) a free ticket to attend the 2014 WSO Annual Conference in New York on June 28 ($200 Value!). Without further ado:

Investment Banking
@B-po - Corporate Banking - 2nd Year Analyst
@EuroGorilla - Generalist - 3rd+ Year Analyst

Hedge Fund
@DJBanker - 2nd Year Analyst

Sales & Trading
@shatinstrats - Prop Trading - Portfolio Manager

Consulting
@pr4mence - Consultant

corporate finance
@Altecvix - 2nd Year analyst

Are you a working professional and you're interested in joining the WSO Certified User club? E-mail [email protected] and [email protected] your username and send a link to your LinkedIn profile.