Prepping for IB interviews and I don't know what's the best way to answer "tell me about the markets." Should I describe the stock market or/and the Fed? Choose one or the other?
What have other people said for IB interviews and did it work?
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Honestly I think interviews just want to see you have some sort of macro interest.
Imagine you’re talking to a friend who just got up from a coma (lol) after a year and he’s asking you “so how’s the market?” naturally you’ll talk about the huge drop/fed printer going brrr/ unemployment sky hight but stocks still rising/ what you think is going to happen next 6 months. (Don’t make it political of course)
As long as you sort of have a pulse on the market you’ll be fine.
Bump.
Had this question and went too technical. In an email afterwards when I asked for advice and anything i could improve on, interviewer told me to talk more about the markets in an interesting way
start following markets so this is a natural thing to think about.
how? take some of your actual money, put it into a brokerage account like TD Ameritrade and buy some of the major ETFs (SPY, QQQ, IWM for the US...maybe some sector ETFs..maybe pick some individual stocks you like..maybe buy some gold or silver with the GLD or SLV ETFs).
Create a diversified portfolio...but with real money. You will find that your brain will focus more on the performance of assets yo own...because you then have a real connection to them...your real money. then read financial news and try to understand why your stocks go up and down on a daily basis.
You will find it easier to naturally talk about these things when you have your own real money on the line.
What would really impress me in an interview is if a candidate talked about the macro factors and how that relates to the desk that you are interviewing for.
Aka - Low interest (in M&A) = Good potential to leverage up to portfolio companies to buy add on acquisitions. Thus a potential rise in buy-side work and potential to build out / work with MM teams to drive business.
There’s some threads in here that share solid sources for market news (free). I have email subscriptions to the water coolest and morning brew (plus investing.com is a solid app) that makes it easy for me to do a 10-15 minute breeze though what’s happening each morning. Couple that with the advice in here on throwing some of your own money into the market and keeping in touch with macro clinate becomes a game of sorts.
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