Good but toxic PM. Stay or leave?
Joined C/P72 through a grad program, and has been about 2 years on the team. Set up is, I have my own coverage and bounce ideas to my PM and he makes trading decisions.
The PM is pretty good for sector he used to cover during his analyst year, but for many of mine, he’s either new to the sub-vertical or weren’t his “core” coverage so he and I are both learning on get-go.
He’s pretty much “your success is mine, even my mistake is yours” type of guy. Not denying the fact that I made my share of mistakes but we’ve lost more money on calls where he “overrode” me.
I think my frustration is
- Not being able to scale up my coverage in the book as he’s new and tends to prefer to put more dollars on the sub-sector he’s more familiar with
- I’m on my own as he doesn’t know my names well so I’m not getting enough mentorship (like I can do what I do from any seat)
- He basically changes he opinion/mood based on a stock move while telling me not to
- Taking blames for mistakes I didn’t make
Are these common in a pod set-up? Am I being just a whining P and should suck up/stick with a successful PM or leverage the good YTD pnl to move to a different seat?
Whiny P
I’m half joking. I empathize with your feeling - I think it’s fairly common. Most PMs are not good managers. That being said, the industry has always been like this and it forces you to learn and adapt. Some of it is inherent in analyst and PM dynamic, some of it is fixable.
I’m too lazy to write an essay so I’ll just submit a few bullet pts for you to consider
Why would he allocate more capital to a sector he doesn’t know well, being led by a jr analyst that has less experience than an IB analyst? And a sector where thus far, the track record sounds mixed at best? Would you do that if you were him? Would you risk your family’s livelihood? Would you risk your career? To appease a 24 year old’s entitled attitude? You won’t realize this until you manage people, but younger analysts always think they’re better than they actually are. Confidence is important but that doesn’t change that reality
What you need to do is learn the industry on your accord, teach it to him, have some success together, and then he will scale you. Every pod is the same. They all want you to run more capital. His incentive is to scale his book, so unless he’s going to fire you, ultimately he will need you to scale
I’ve covered many sectors in my career. Stocks are by and large the same. Sector dynamics are different. The training you need is not the sector, it’s stocks. He can teach you stocks (in theory). So I would try to adjust your perspective.
What would going to a new team solve for you given your grievances? Play it out. Like write it out - you can reply to this thread with your response - and then see how it sounds
If he lost more money, ultimately it’s still on you. You didn’t communicate it clearly is likely the issue. He is applying a stock lens to what you tell him because he doesn’t know your sector and you may be surfacing the wrong things because you don’t know stocks
While I agree with the above, sometimes it’s more about the PM than the analyst. Some PMs go beyond being merely bad managers and are terrible, using their strong performance as leverage: underpaying, shifting blame, and convincing others the issue lies with the analyst rather than their own management which hurts you. In those situations, the only real solution is to leave and prove yourself elsewhere. You have to dig deep and honestly assess which situation you’re in, I’ve seen both many times over my career
I'd only leave if you feel you're not being paid well. You seem orthogonal to your PM and have a PnL at 2 years of experience. You can probably leave in a couple years for a junior PM seat if you stick it out and are lucky. I've seen other insecure PMs not give their analysts this kind of experience - they either become a data monkey, model monkey, or a code monkey. Imagine you bounce and work for one of those guys, who will surely misrepresent himself during the interview. Now what?
You need to market your ideas to him better. Him not scaling your coverage suggests that yes he is not familiar with your sector, but also implies he doesn't really trust you as an analyst yet.
Unfortunately as an analyst you need to make the right calls, but convincing your PM is also an equally important part of the job. Maybe you don't have chemistry with your current PM, or maybe another PM might be more easily convinced by your "sales/pitch" skills, but in any case, treat it as a chance to level up in your investment pitching skills.
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While unpleasant, this situation is unfortunately common. But, the grass is not always greener, you could jump seats but land somewhere with bad performance and a similar culture. Lots of PM's use the first 3 years of an Analyst's tenure to put them under unfair amounts of pressure to see what they are made of. I've been in your shoes, my advice is stick it out for a year and if things aren't getting better, leave. Upside is you prove yourself this year, gain respect, and you're off to the races.
You’ll run into this issue almost everywhere and in every seat. Few in this industry are good managers since they’re busy with everything. Just take it slow, adapt to the mistakes and successes and see where it goes. It takes time to gel and figure out what your PM wants and how they trade. Eventually, they’ll understand your names and style better. And they’ll have more confidence in you. regularly ask for feedback and ways you can improve.
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