What to do while on SS to better my chances of going to BS

Been on SS doing IG credit strat/research for a little over a year and just took CFA L2. Studying for that was (or felt like) a good use of my free time to help better my chances of getting a seat at a credit fund when the time comes to look in another year or 2. I know the typical blah blah cfa dosnt guarantee you anything but can’t hurt.

Any other suggestions of things to do now that the studying is over? My group is pretty macro so I’ve been thinking of expressing interest to my boss in learning some bottom up stuff but don’t think that’s really the point of my job, so not sure how much solid exposure I’ll really be able to get there. Just looking for advice on what to do at work to try to learn more applicable skills or anything to do outside of work that will make me a better buy side candidate in the future.

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The lack of bottom-up work hurts you. I do not support you moving internally just to get exposure, unless you cannot get to BS directly. 

Your top priority for sure is work on single name ideas - credit or equity. Preferably, you should know quickly what your investment style is (pulling your trick here, as in "I know growth and value have no distinction, blah blah blah", but reality is growth shops and value shops look for different things in a candidate), because the amount of time you need to spend is correlated w/ how wide a net you want to cast for your search - ie. if you want to gun for credit, growth investing, and value investing, that's 6 good ideas at least you need. If just gun for credit, you need 2 good ideas. 

To lesser extent, focus on two things: 1. network with buy-side people 2. read a few (but not too many) investment books - again, don't read too many investment books, after hitting the Klarman, Howard Marks, Phil Fisher, Moyer, go on to read broadly about the world (biography, history, philosophy, etc.)

You can use my reading list if you like: https://dicktoad.substack.com/p/dicks-reading-list

 

Thanks for that, i appreciate the suggestions. Can’t promise I’ll buy margin of safety for a few hundred but looking forward to the others!

I have a sector in mind that I think I’d enjoy the most, should I start there or scratch that and try to pick a few pitches on any sector by strategy and see which one I like the most?

Any suggestions on books or tips for security screening? Not how do I find a buy per se but before you read the ks and make a model on a random company, is there a way to shrink the universe?

 

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