How do I demonstrate "passion for finance?"
I'm an incoming freshman at a Russell Group university. I'm trying to get a position in a small-scale student-led university investment fund. I happen to "know" (very vaguely) one of the senior committee members, so I asked for advice on applications. All he said was that I had to demonstrate a sincere "passion for finance." That was it. I tried to get other tips and tricks from him but he just repeated the same thing.
Unfortunately, I have zilch work experience (I just graduated high school and no one in my close family has a financial background) and my knowledge in finance is meagre. But I'm keen to learn and have a lot of interest in markets.
Could I have any tips on tackling this and what are some things I could do/read to make my "passion for finance" sound more convincing?
I’d say the biggest 2 things are actually speaking with passion and having the knowledge that a person passionate about financial markets would possess.
Number 1 is just how you talk about things and being able to make it sound like you are genuinely interested in what’s happening. You can do this by having a plethora of market trends you’ve noticed and being able to understand it, answer basic questions about it and have your own opinion on what’s happening.
Number 2 is a bit harder as it has to do with you actually learning what’s happening. Your goal should be to sound like someone who reads the paper everyday and knows what’s currently going on+any recent developing stories to old trends. To do this I would choose a couple industries you’re interested in and just seeing what’s been going on, who are the top and bottom performers and what you think will happen in the future.
I think another add on to this is having one company you’re able to speak confidently about for a pitch and the same for a short opinion.
If you’ve got all that then you should have demonstrated strong passion and that you keep up with the industry.
This is absolutely what I was looking for. Thank you for the advice.
In terms of resources, what kind of websites/new sites would you recommend?
A bloomberg terminal is ideal but assuming that's not an option try and find equity research reports on whatever you're interested in. You can usually find pretty recent ones relating to major industries and companies. A bit of an uncommon answer for me would be using YouTube. You have to deal with a lot more potential B.S. on there but if you can find a reliable channel they can be a wealth of knowledge (my personal favs are https://www.youtube.com/c/TheInvestorChannel , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIALMKvObZNtJ6AmdCLP7Lg , and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkcnYVAVZQOB-nXHechtXDg/videos this last one's more comedy based but can actually force you to learn a bit due to a lot of the jokes being based off current market events). Other than that something you might enjoy is https://invrs.com/home which is a do-it-together investing style website where you have a similar community feel to something like wallstreetbets but actual well thought out fundamental research.
Check out these recommendations, bookmark the ones you enjoy and use it as introduction to what interests you.
Thank you! I watched Benjamin's content a lot during the whole Gamestop episode - very entertaining.
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