Hi All,
Brief background: I work at a BB in S&T in PB/D1 sales. I been here two years now, have great support here and have received strong feedback on my performance. However, I am becoming increasingly frustrated by how little specialist knowledge I am gaining and would really like to be more engaged in the analysis of the markets (my role does require that I keep in touch with mkts but no as much as I would like ). I have an affinity to equities , have signed up for CFA L1 in June and I'm doing my best to educate myself outside of work (learning to do basic modelling, reading Graham, Fisher, Lynch , accounting modules etc, started trading my own PA.). My medium term goal is to drive towards a career in equity/credit research.
My question: Through a buddy of mine I have learnt that SMID research team is thin on the ground and therefore there may be an opportunity there which I could chase down. I would love to work in equity research, its what I have been driving towards for the last 6 months or so. My question is, given that the research guys pay is related to trading volumes of their coverage, would SMID still be a strong career choice. My initial (somewhat uniformed) thoughts are that if I do manage to secure this opportunity I would finally be learning a specialist skill set and be doing work which I find significantly more interesting than what I do now . My only concern is future career trajectory - does working in SMID limit your potential earning or your ability to to become a well-respected/ top ranked analyst (of course this could take years, and is by no respect even close to a guarantee of occurring). I am under the impression that it is the big ticket industries that are most widely traded (healthcare etc.) and therefore these are the sectors that are most highly valued by the banks. I am also trying to consider exit opportunities here too as my long term goal would be to become an analyst at a buyside shop.
Any advice/feedback from you fellow monkeys would be greatly appreciated!
