Just finished up my IB internship and now need advice

I just finished up my IB internship for the summer and I enjoyed it a lot. I am a now sophomore in college at a non/semi target and the only reason I got the internship was because of networking. My question is though I think I would much rather be doing broker work (think ICAP etc.). I am coming up with thoughts for next year and I really want to try brokering or working at a brokerage house, but I am worried that within a couple of years...maybe even a decade or two that field will be gone. Do you think brokering is a path worth going down for the future? Or should I stick to IB?

Give me some advice monkeys

9 Comments
 
leveRAGE.no. friend worked at GFI this summer and said its essentially a dead industry. definitely stick with banking.

as much as I don't want to hear it it is true...are there parts of banking more client oriented? I can do the number crunching, but I love interacting with people

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Best Response
Hoogerman
leveRAGE.no. friend worked at GFI this summer and said its essentially a dead industry. definitely stick with banking.

as much as I don't want to hear it it is true...are there parts of banking more client oriented? I can do the number crunching, but I love interacting with people

IDB myself and I can assure you it's not a dead industry. As long as their is flow in the bank, their will always be an OTC market, accordingly IDBs. People are concerned about electronic broking and algo/system trading eliminating IDBs, but that is comparing apples to oranges.

Electronic broking and algo/sytem trading cater to retail investors and other institutions who want access to the exchange. IDBs cater to banks and hedge funds who use bank balance sheets through the banks' prime brokerage desk to trade in the OTC - the notional per trade is very different, retail and algo shops don't trade 10m usd clips. A flaw of electronic broking and system trading is that they can only function if the products that they are programmed to trade exists (listed on the exchange). If what you are looking if not a listed product your only choice is to go to the OTC for that product, home of the IDBs.

So unless governments decided to disband all OTC transactions and make everything vanilla, IDBs will live on.

 
drifter
Hoogerman
leveRAGE.no. friend worked at GFI this summer and said its essentially a dead industry. definitely stick with banking.

as much as I don't want to hear it it is true...are there parts of banking more client oriented? I can do the number crunching, but I love interacting with people

IDB myself and I can assure you it's not a dead industry. As long as their is flow in the bank, their will always be an OTC market, accordingly IDBs. People are concerned about electronic broking and algo/system trading eliminating IDBs, but that is comparing apples to oranges.

Electronic broking and algo/sytem trading cater to retail investors and other institutions who want access to the exchange. IDBs cater to banks and hedge funds who use bank balance sheets through the banks' prime brokerage desk to trade in the OTC - the notional per trade is very different, retail and algo shops don't trade 10m usd clips. A flaw of electronic broking and system trading is that they can only function if the products that they are programmed to trade exists (listed on the exchange). If what you are looking if not a listed product your only choice is to go to the OTC for that product, home of the IDBs.

So unless governments decided to disband all OTC transactions and make everything vanilla, IDBs will live on.

Awesome I have been hearing a lot of this also lately. My good friend's dad works at ICAP and pretty much said this.

Exit OPP's for IDB? Places like newedge or brokerdealers?

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Hoogerman
drifter
Hoogerman
leveRAGE.no. friend worked at GFI this summer and said its essentially a dead industry. definitely stick with banking.

as much as I don't want to hear it it is true...are there parts of banking more client oriented? I can do the number crunching, but I love interacting with people

IDB myself and I can assure you it's not a dead industry. As long as their is flow in the bank, their will always be an OTC market, accordingly IDBs. People are concerned about electronic broking and algo/system trading eliminating IDBs, but that is comparing apples to oranges.

Electronic broking and algo/sytem trading cater to retail investors and other institutions who want access to the exchange. IDBs cater to banks and hedge funds who use bank balance sheets through the banks' prime brokerage desk to trade in the OTC - the notional per trade is very different, retail and algo shops don't trade 10m usd clips. A flaw of electronic broking and system trading is that they can only function if the products that they are programmed to trade exists (listed on the exchange). If what you are looking if not a listed product your only choice is to go to the OTC for that product, home of the IDBs.

So unless governments decided to disband all OTC transactions and make everything vanilla, IDBs will live on.

Awesome I have been hearing a lot of this also lately. My good friend's dad works at ICAP and pretty much said this.

Exit OPP's for IDB? Places like newedge or brokerdealers?

Institutional sales at a BB, prime brokerage at a BB, Account Manager at broker houses like NE, junior trader if you're able to impress one of your guys enough - although this is not as likely now in this market (it did happen in the past). if you have a really good relationship with your clients they might recruit you to do sales for them when they start their hedge fund - this was the case with my former boss who is now a partner at a hedge fund.

 

Stay away from the brokering side. Algo is taking more and more over and onlinebrokers take away more business from brokers. The need for brokers is declining, but the need for excel monkeys is almost constant (ie, the whole industry is downsizing from previous years)

CNBC sucks "This financial crisis is worse than a divorce. I've lost all my money, but the wife is still here." - Client after getting blown up
 

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