Undergrad student Question about HF?
Im about to finish undergrad in CS. I was always interested in stocks and trading and do trading too. I want to build my career in hedge fund field as portfolio manager and eventually start my own fund. I have intermediate level of knowledge about finance and can read income statement, balance sheet and cashflow statement. Im also gonna switch my major to finance in Masters degree. Can someone help me to understand the career path to HF. What kind of skills should i accquire in order to success in this field? Can someone guide me to self learn concepts for Hedge Funds? Your help will be appreciated. Thank you
To break into the hedge fund (HF) industry and eventually become a portfolio manager, here's a roadmap based on the most helpful WSO content:
1. Career Path to Hedge Funds
2. Skills to Acquire
3. Self-Learning Resources
4. Networking and Internships
5. Long-Term Vision
By combining your CS background with finance expertise, you can position yourself uniquely for quant or systematic hedge funds. Keep learning, networking, and gaining relevant experience, and you’ll be on the right track!
Sources: Hedge Fund Careers: Getting a Hedge Fund Job Out of Undergrad and Beyond, https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/hedge-fund/the-hedge-fund-experience-good-bad-ugly?customgpt=1, Hedge Fund Careers: Getting a Hedge Fund Job Out of Undergrad and Beyond, Q&A: Non-Target School to Portfolio Manager at a Top Hedge Fund – 6 Years Out of Undergrad
Relax on trying to move all the way to PM. It's good to have ambition, it's another to set yourself on a 15+ year path when you don't know what you're doing.
CS is probably fine, better for some areas of HF. Quant skills are valued not just in quant funds, but also in L/S and other areas of traditional finance. I would say the masters really isn't necessary if you can get a role that leads to hedge funds down the line. Many can join HF out of UG, but many more will not be able to. So, IB, ER, S&T, AM, etc. can all lead to HF down the line. Figure out what kind of fund you want to join or what area you're most interested in first.
Though im CS student im having hard time in coding. So ig i wanna switch to finance. Can i learn finance in masters and join as analyst. I wanna join discretionary firm such as long short. Im currently trying to learn how analysts in HF research and create investment thesis.
First, get better at coding. It's a skill that will carry over into basically any career nowadays. Even if you don't need it, it's better to have it. Second, masters in finance is really only needed if you can't land a job out of UG. It's not going to teach you something you couldn't already learn. MFE would be better suited for actually learning things, but that's a more quantitative degree. Doing L/S, you probably won't break in from UG, look at IB or ER roles and network. There's tons of guides out there.
As an aside, your questions strike me as really straightforward and easily googleable. This is a basic thing I would expect out of any analyst, to be able to look up things on the internet and read them instead of instantly asking broad questions like "How do hedge fund analysts research and create thesis's". That's something a simple google search will tell you. You have to be able to do independent research on these topics instead of trying to crowdsource basic questions like this.
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