Does anyone actually think that finance is interesting?

If finance paid minimum wage, nobody here would become an investment banker, if that's what you're asking.

Finance Theory is interesting, it's pretty much applied mathematics (Have a background financial mathematics). IBD? Heck no, you wouldn't work in finance if it's not for the money.

Well, I haven't taken upper level course work for finance just yet so I can't speak for that. I will say anything involving some capital market that can be traded interests me A LOT since it pretty much opens the door to learn about the different players & data.

Like with FX you follow different news data such as Fed Funds Rate, NFP, FOMC or even just learning about the other Central Banks and their policies like ECB, BoJ, etc. With futures like /CL you have EIA or /NG which had that 3 SD move a few months back and wiped everyone out . When I was doing basic, weekend warrior type of "research" on the XIV crash in February 2018 it was really neat because I learned about how ETFs can trigger massive sell offs. https://www.ft.com/content/d836a02e-0420-11e3-8aab-00144feab7de great read.

IDK I think all of that is pretty cool especially learning about the institutional side who has a massive hand in all this + their strategies.

Finance is a really broad term. Do I personally find working on the sell-side and guiding clients through a M&A process interesting? Not particularly. Do I like investing behind and partnering with management teams to help grow a business and realize an exit 3-5 years down the road? Yes. I think without getting into the nuance of what specifically within "finance" one is referring to, it's hard to get at a fair answer to this questions.

I have sort of wondered this myself when thinking about my motivations about trying to get an institutional trading job. Am I really into this, or is the money motivating me?

Then I see all the studying and work I am doing position myself with no immediate financial benefit, I catch myself actually enjoying the math or observing my own satisfaction when I finally understand a concept.

For me it runs fairly deep, I have always had broad interests and have always liked to know how things work. So for someone who sort of came of age during and in the wake of '09, maybe I have more motivation/interest when reading about the nitty gritty of CDOs, Swaps, etc... I also want to know more so when some fool who watched the big short starts spewing barney-style explanations I can intervene.

I love it but I also have people on my team handling (most of) all the shit I used to hate doing. Now I get to focus on deal making/structuring, reneg'ing debt, hanging out with smart people to find the best talent to hire, etc... There are guys on my team much better than me at the other stuff so there's no point in wasting my time trying. I know I'll never build a better model than them, or code a better solution for automating deal flow, etc..

Still not huge on the operating portion, but hoping to be able to afford to hire out for that soon and I would say most of the operating stuff I do ends up being more management + CMO type stuff than finance anyways.

General life advice though, never work a job you hate or don't love being in regardless of pay. Work something you love where you KNOW you can be the top 1% and the money takes care of itself.

Finance is pretty broad, and I do not find every single aspect of it extremely fascinating. Though, long term investing, and research based on fundamentals is quite interesting.