Macabacus: Where do I start?

I have an internship with JPM this summer, and I want to familiarize myself with some stuff. I'm starting with Macabacus because it's free, and when I finish with that I'm planning on purchasing BIWS. I have no clue where to start with Macabacus though.

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Best Response

As someone who will be also working as an SA this summer (and having done a couple before) - I would recommending purchasing and cracking on with BIWS right away, and skipping Macabacus - if you are hoping to complete the Fundamentals part of the premium package in a month's time, by working up from the excellence to Excel module (highly recommended), then that's going to be a decent time commitment. Brian is very clear in his explanations, and is a very good teacher. By the time you finish - you will have a solid understanding of how models fit together (both conceptually and technically). If you start soon, you might be able to complete Powerpoint Pro too, which would be of significant use, given that you'll be primarily working on formatting tables and powerpoint slides.

I think that, in your position, trying to get your head around Macabacus will be spinning the wheels a bit too much.

Good luck!

 

Your internship salary will cover it back and more in the first month.

If it's going to give you an advantage, never skimp on a mentor, digital or otherwise! They usually pay for themselves - in this case, much sooner than you think (i.e. maybe your JPM colleagues will be impressed by your already-possessed knowledge of financial knowledge and how they gel together, or that you can consistently dole out perfectly formatted PowerPoints and "get" concepts quickly).

This positive impression - maintained - is everything in finance.

 

This is silly. Most modeling prep before SA is pointless as you won't touch a model during the summer. And if you do, it will come with very strict instructions from an Analyst and most likely will be data entry.

 

This depends heavily on the situation - in one of my previous internships, I was responsible for building lbo models (albeit this was in an internal HF at a BB) - it will always be helpful to at least get an idea for how everything practically fits together - particularly if (for whatever reason) there are low SA - FT conversion rates.

 

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