Aug 17, 2017

Sales and Trading to Credit/Distressed Debt?

I understand that many analysts that hedge and credit funds like Silver Point and Oaktree Credit take come from top RX groups. Can you still make it to those kinds of funds if you do a few years as an analyst at GS/MS/JPM S&T if you get a desk like distressed debt, credit, EM credit?

 

Lots of banks have desk analysts roles within Credit S&T - some require incoming analysts to start there before being permanently staffed to IG, HY, Distressed, etc. If your end goal is to end up at a Silver Point or Oaktree you are probably best served getting one of these desk analyst gigs as that day to day and the skills you'll develop are closest to what you'll be doing/using at a HF (more so than publishing research).

 
Best Response

Depends on what you want in your day to day and also what exit ops you're focused on - re the sell side, desk analyst roles are typically full research/no risk responsibility, where as trading roles are focused on risk decisions/market making but with some research element. On the buy side it can vary by fund, but a common set up is research analysts (doing very similar work to sell side desk analysts) feeding ideas in a central decision maker (PM) who then picks the best ideas and has an execution trader put the risk on. Subtle difference is on the sell side the decision making & execution both lie with the trader/market maker.

Re exit ops - it is much easier to go from sell side desk analyst to HF analyst given the similarities, if you start as a sell side trader and then try to move to the buy side you are either going to have to 1) give up the ability to make risk decisions and be an execution trader (which I think you'll find isn't easy), 2) get lucky and find a junior PM role and work your way up, 3) transition to a research role as an analyst at a HF.

Hope that helps, happy to discuss further.

 

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