IB to Macro HF?
Currently in IB, but have always had an interest in macro and want to join a macro HF. What's the best way to position myself for this move? I've read about how Soros and Druckenmiller both had an equities background before they switched to macro. Is this even possible nowadays? Are there people who have made moves like this recently? Would appreciate any advice.
Are you in M&A or S&T? What’s your bachelor?
M&A in a coverage group, degree is a very technical STEM degree but not known for being very quantitative
Alright, similar things. I think you can still try and move to more quant-macro roles if you know python/R, but its going to be tough
If you are an intern then no sweat. If out of school a little trickier but possible if only a few years. As above poster notes jr analyst in macro now is all about r/python first and learn intuition/macro second. That said if you have these down/examples of work, then start tracking a few key indicators (us 2 and 10 yr, s and p, gold, oil, dollar) and see how they react to different economic events which will help give you an intuition. There is also an excellent thread on this site on how to learn how to trade a macro product to learn on intuition. When you come across stuff you don’t know do a search for some of the fixed income/fx/options/macro recommend books and fill in your knowledge. So counterintuitively- quant skills first, market intuition second, textbook third IMO bc you can get hired with 1+2, maybe even just 1 but not with just 3 or 2 for example. I know of folks that started in fundamental investing and pivoted early bc had the requisite quant background but I think the equity research to equity strategy to punt on anything is not really a viable option anymore (of course there will be exceptions).
Another route that requires less focus on quant / programming skills - there are definitely macro strategies that seek to use equity sectors / single-names to capitalize on broader macro themes. The way these strategies work is to capitalize on big macro themes to position across equity markets and they often require some specialization in sectors with big macro drivers (Energy Sector, Metals Sector, Banks, et al...). These are essentially macro-oriented strategies that intend to use big macro market views to take positions primarily in Equity Markets vs. root markets (Bullish Gold? Take long exposures in Gold Miners vs. other sectors). There are some strategies that will do this as a small subset of an overall strategy and a smaller number of strategies that will exclusively lean on this type of approach.
FWIW - I have only met a small number of people who approach markets in this manner, but they exist. I think this was probably a more common path years ago when there was looser guidelines on mandates relative to today. A good example of a firm like this today might be a firm like Soroban - which (from my understanding) has a relatively good macro background and as an example will take positions in both commodities and commodity-focused single-names when they have a strong theses.
Agree. If you are fundamentally trained and want to get into something macro ish then your best route is equity analyst => equity strategist (i.e. sector vs. sector, country vs. country, style vs. style) => equity strategy type fund pm/equity strategy pm for sleeve of macro fund etc/macro fund pm if you're good at it (have seen it done) . You will probably need to pick up some quant skills but nothing too hardcore. Alas as the poster notes, there are not many seats for this.
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