Interest in Wall Street
For those of you who always knew you were interested in Wall Street and would be working there, what kinds of things did you do on your own before you got there?
My little brother is 16 and has been following stocks since he was 6 or 7. I got him a book (textbook, actually) on value investing, and he's now teaching ME stuff about how to look at a stock, like Bollinger bands and P/e ratios and what they all mean. Although he can't personally own a stock portfolio, we hired a guy (or rather, the same guy who's managing our parent's stuff) to create one for him and so he has to go through him to sell and trade stocks.
So I'm curious to know, what kinds of things can he do while he's in HS and college to demonstrate to Wall St companies that he would be a really good addition to their team? Were there certain things you did that really made your passion for the field stand out when you went to apply? I'm having him consider maybe managing other's portfolios (or maybe that's illegal, so he can at least give advice or something?)
no offense, but please nothing about joining your college's wall st club or finance club. if you liked your finance club that's awesome and more power to you. i just think there are probably more effective ways of demonstrating your passion ;)
Tell him to make a youtube video and send it to Tosh.0.
That should definitely work.
Also Stan O'Neal is looking for some new guys for his startup advisory I am sure he could help.
Tell him to get good grades in Math.
Get good grades and keep trading stocks. Maybe get a think or swim account and paper trade different products to gain more experience. That is really all he can do at this age. If he gets into a target he can start getting internships at BB freshmen year.
Network. Never too early.
agreed.
he should start facebooking jamie dimon and blankflein. maybe feed their pigs in Farmville.
Ok:
1) If I send anything to Tosh, it'll be in the form of a banner that reads "Daily Soup was so much better."
2) At this point, Stan O'Neal needs to step as far away from positions of leadership as humanly possible. I wouldn't trust him to lead a horse to water.
3) My bro already gets stellar grades from math. makes biddies swoon when he solves multivariable calc problems up on that chalkboard.
i stared trading when I was 16 to haha
Alright, I just thought of the most baller thing he could possibly do! Have him sit for the fucking CAIA. The idea of a high schooler with a professional designation is really impressive.
Also the site says there are no prerequisites to sit for the exam:
"While there are no required prerequisites to sit for the CAIA exams, candidates are assumed to have an understanding of the basic concepts of finance and quantitative analysis."
At that young age, I'd just try to do things that can keep that spark alive. I can assure you, virtually none of us had a wall street career planned. It just happened because we are seduced by the lifestyle, cash and being part of elite group. And the bitches love it. None, absolutely none of us would've said in grade 3, "When I grow up, I want to be a banker".
love of reading - buy him books if he wants, maybe get him a trading account with fake online money etc. I'd encourage him to take quant/math courses, but then again at this early age, wouldnt want to isolate him from other faculties of arts / sciences / music / sports. Collectively, they all play a part in well-rounded, good education.
There are no sure/guaranteed ways to get an ibank job. Closest/surest thing is : Go to a fancy college > Get a fancy GPA > Try to get a couple of finance internships and probably he can show his enthusiasm and interest during that time. But that's long term.
At this moment....just keep watering the tree, its too early to gauge its fruitfulness.
On a bit of tangent here, but what method of suicide would you employ if you were a middle-aged stockbroker forced to run trades for a 16-year old kid? I'll bet the kid calls him a dozen times a day, too.
I think I'd use an 8-gauge shotgun to wallpaper my bathroom in a lovely shade of brain.
What a disgrace.
going off on another tangent here, but I think using a shotgun to repaint the walls is both uneconomical and impractical when the smaller but explosively powerful Smith & Wesson magnum can do the same trick without having to deal with the uncomfortable, but inevitable, dilemma of "how to reach far enough to pull the trigger on a shutgun pressed to your head.
or he could grow a pair of balls and tell the 16 year kid to fuck off and go play GI Joe/Starcraft/grabass.
the fact that my parents are longtime clients of his would make it even more impressive if he did that.
but seriously, these are all stellar suggestions and I'm thankful for the help. Having a humanities background myself, I think it's more important that kids have a well-rounded education regardless of their other interests. I don't expect him to recite Shakespeare all day, but I will be profoundly disappointed if he knows who sang Party In the USA but has no clue who wrote Romeo and Juliet.
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