Breaking into Equity Research and Hedge Fund Analyst
Hello, So a little background before i get to my question. Roughly a year ago I moved to the east coast for a job. I am working with a brokerage firm right outside of Stamford CT. At first I thought sales was what I wanted to do. However, after studying for the Series 7 and aiding the senior partners with research I felt a passion for the research side of the business. After being licensed and cold calling for 2 months, I spoke to my senior partners about switching to a more analytical/research based job. The pay was awful and I was absolutely miserable cold calling.. My pay got bumped up, but not by much. The work that I do now is very much along the lines of what I want to do. I research companies given to me by my senior partner and present him and the sales team my investment thesis. However, there are times where I will go days without getting an assignment and sit there reading financial news for the whole day. The senior partner who gives me the companies to research also doesn't provide much criticism or guidance. My question is this. I really want to work within the research field. However, I'm not sure what area to go into. The ones that I am considering are investment analysis and sell side research. I want to end up working for a hedge fund down the way. Can someone give me a more in depth analysis of both of these positions and what it takes to get to these? Also what is the work life balance and average pay like for both? Thanks!
Two items of note, (1) it appears you are already working in the research field, and (2) if you don't know what area you want to go into, how do you know you want to end up working for a hedge fund?
With respect to the former point, from what you're describing, it appears that you're already working in something akin to sell side research (or it just is a sell side research gig). If this is not the case, please clarify what exactly it is you do so that a contrast can be drawn with what you're referring to as 'sell side research' or 'investment analysis'.
In the case of the latter point, it strikes me as a bit odd that you want to end up working for a hedge fund with what appears to be a relatively weak grasp of what it is fundamentally driven funds do (i.e. research). This isn't to say that you have made a wrong choice nor that it is a bad place to go, but just that it appears to be an uninformed opinion.
With these two items of note out of the way, to address your question directly, sell side research is a sales job coloured by investment research and investment analysis is exactly as its name implies. In the case of sell side research, you cover a set group of companies, build fancy models, and regularly write reports summarizing your thoughts on the company. You'll assign ratings based on whatever reason and basically try to pitch your ideas to clients so they give you votes and hopefully trade with your desk, thereby earning you money. In the case of investment analysis, you need to identify actionable investment opportunities within the boundaries of your mandate (e.g. absolute return, relative to a benchmark, etc) and the boundaries of your style (e.g. top down, bottom up, value, growth, etc). To get into either position, you need to demonstrate a passion for the public markets and the ability to form/defend an investment thesis. To this end, it's probably useful to invest your own money so you at least get a taste for what it is you're doing. Assuming you ultimately develop sufficient skill and talent to do either job (it's fairly comparable at the junior levels), the only way you'll be breaking in from there is networking like crazy and marketing yourself well.
With regards to average pay and hours, these are generally stupid questions that comes up too often as there is a massive amount of variability from shop to shop. The very rough, general rule of thumb would be that hedge funds pay more and work harder, but there is little good quality data out there to allow for anything beyond this rule of thumb. I know people who are at a similar 'rank' as me at other shops that make 50+% more than me and likewise, people of similar rank making 20%-30% less than me. While my work life balance is pretty good, it's certainly not a 9-5 (even though some firms out there basically work 8-4:30). [Note: I work at an AM, but not a HF].
At bottom, it helps to actually like your job for what you do before you worry about money. This is the finance industry and even if you end up at the bottom quintile of an AM or HF or BB ER gig, you're going to be doing better than ~95% of the rest of the country. Yes, an 8 figure paycheck is really cool (as is a 7 figure paycheck) but so long as you break past $500k, (and so long as you're not pissing it away on frivolities) your life is going to be pretty solid.
I got a bit off topic towards the end, but hope this helps and PM / reply if you have any questions. Cheers mate and best of luck!
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