Internship experience opinion
I was wondering if my internship experience is normal for a rising-second year (undergrad), or normal for undergrad
First off, I love my internship and am learning a ton. I am working on the analyst team at an ETF investment firm, with the senior market strategist, but he believes in learning by doing so I am just given a goal, some data, and given free reign with it, as long as I get it done. Little instruction unless I ask, but I learn most of it on my own by reading literature.
So far I have done four main things:
1) I worked with Nelson-Siegel Models to predict bond yield curves to allow us to make regional capital market assumptions on longer term (5+ year) hold investments. I was given a model and I adjusted it, wrote my own equations to find different predictive measures, and found bond yield data (1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 1. 2. 3. 5. 7. 10. 15. 2, 30 year bonds) back as far as they could go and made the curves with them.
2) I am doing spectral analysis on Factor cycles (quality, Value standard, Value weighted, Momentum, Quality, small cap, and min vol), comparing them to regional baselines (R3000 etc) using 12 month, 3 year, and 5 year rolling returns. The goal of this project is to find correlations between factor returns both stand alone and compared to the market (overperformance, underperformance, equal) I have found strong correlation between momentum and quality factor cycles. The other goal of this project, and the more important one, is to find a way to determine our place in a cycle, and to predict peaks and troughs of cycles. Also to differentiate between actual cycles, and little blips in the cycles (actual downward cycle=sell, blip downwards in an increasing cycle=buy)
3) I am working on a team of 5 analysts on a due diligence project. I work for an ETF investment firm, and they are creating a rigorous due diligence program for the ETF providers. I am mainly working with an analyst on creating a quantitative due diligence system. We are going to quantify aspects of an etf provider and use that number to rank them. We are also going to create a score for each ETF provider to act as a variable when we rank each and every ETF, with the provider score being but one aspect of the ranking.
4) Finally, I have been given the task of creating a new asset universe, and creating a new basket system, and placing each and every ETF into a basket. I will be doing that by starting with correlation algorithms to sort the ETFs into broad categories, and then taking a deeper dive into the gritty stuff of the numbers to make specialized buckets. My firm does not believe that baskets such as commodities, alternatives, etc are useful enough, and would like more effective bucketing system. I am given three-four days to do this whole thing with little to no supervision.
So basically I was wondering if this is normal work for a first year intern, or if not that, for an undergrad intern at all. I would like to know how to market this to employers.
PS. I had never used excel (all they use) ever before coming here, I had never learned a single thing about finance, did not really know any statistics, and had never heard of ETFs before I ran into the CFO on a plane, so they definitely believe in learning by doing!
Thanks!