Im curious to hear peoples opinion as an institutional salesperson in sales and trading. Are e-trading platforms taking over? Is it still a good career to pursue? Obviously there’s a need for a salesperson but it seems like e-trading platforms are taking over and it’s not like it used to be. Thoughts?
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I’m not in S&T but it depends on the product. E trade and the platforms I think you’re talking about destroyed being a “stock broker” and brokerage fees mostly went away not too long ago. What’s left of that is being a private wealth manager or flat fee wealth advisor. But institutional sales is far from dead. Like with trades an institution isn’t just going on Robinhood and ordering 10k shares of Microsoft and having that filled. Fees, style, and transaction types change with equities at that level. Selling vanilla equities in S&T Im assuming isn’t really lucrative like it was back in the day with spreads and technology improvement but there are so many different types of products to trade as a trader or sell as a sales guy from big institution. I’m not in the area you’re probably thinking about but from what I can tell being in sales with the right product (Myself included) seems to fly under the radar and be kind of quietly going strong (at least comparatively to the IB and PE conversation).
I’m not in s&t but my view is someone has to sell those electronic trading capabilities. There will always be a need for sales just not as many as we’re once needed.
maybe look into institutional asset management sales. Still very good money to be made there and don’t need to live in nyc.
Was in vanilla equity sales and would warn to stay away. The only guys not looking over their shoulders everyday for fear of being laid off were the electronic trading guys, who are closer to coders than traditional traders in a technical skillset sense. It is far from what it once was, and I saw many good, competent people on both the sales and cash equity trading side let go and leave the industry entirely because their skillset wasn't transferrable to anything else in finance - aside from a lucky few who pivoted to IR or capital raising. COVID related volatility is a short reprieve (commissions are based on trading volumes) and you can expect the melting icecube to resume melting in short order. I had an immensely difficult time pivoting into IB despite working at a top tier firm. Proceed with caution.
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