Hello from Singapore

These answers are for sell-side houses. Buy side ER is difficult to answer, it depends on the boss and the fund structure.

1. No plan: going to keep an open mind for opportunities. The industry is evolving too fast.

2. It depends on how much value you can add. Some typical paths for small firms: a. Associate -> 1-3 years -> Associate at better house b. Associate -> 2-4 years -> Full writing analyst at better house c. Associate -> 2-5 years -> Analyst -> Buy side/Investment banking d. Entry level analyst at the smallest firms -> a/b/c

The BB analyst would have a much easier time of it when exiting. Even a Tier 2 house I interviewed at had 1.5 year turnover cycles for both sell- and buy-side opportunities, while a good 50% of my colleagues who left without something in hand are jobless. Industry is very small and it took me only a day to find out someone fed me BS about a buy side role lol. On the other hand are excolleagues in big funds and IB/HF. So it really depends.

d. refers to a few firms where you can put your name on a report with less than a years' work exp, those are the smallest firms and pay very little but the name part still attracts people... provided you don't make a fool of yourself

1. Depends on the house. Most firms have both SGX-listed and regional coverage (HK/JP/PH/ID etc). To generalise, analysts based here for regional houses will cover mostly or all SGX-listed stocks, and will typically have a mix of retail and institutional clients. BB tends to have regional coverage instead of just local.

2. Clients of the firm ie those with brokerage accounts. The smallest firms are retail focused ie catering to local Mrs Watanabes. Some can be found for free online/Bloomberg etc. BBs/Tier 2/3 houses typically have liquidity minimums to cover something, the retail focused firms are differentiated/can add value by covering stuff no one else will touch because market cap too small/no trading volume etc. Couple of multi-baggers from such coverage over the past year.