Monday @Mentions April 7, 2014

Thread of the Week:

We had lots of great stuff this week, but the highest ranked post (or posts, in this case) was written by @"Rhys da Vinci". I'm referring of course to The Complete Coward’s Guide to Starting a Company: Part 1 and The Complete Coward’s Guide to Starting a Company: Part 2. We all dream of entrepreneurship at some point, but bankers are a risk averse bunch. Here's how to do it without betting the ranch. The combined count on the two posts is currently 20 Silver Bananas, 4 Facebook Likes, and 4 Tweets.

Comment of the Week:

Comment of the Week this week goes to @"Marcus_Halberstram" on my thread Do You Think the Market Is Rigged?. If you're wondering whether or not HFT is crushing the "little guy", check out his take on it. His comment brought in 4 Silver Bananas.

Graham & Dodd Award:

This is the first time we've given out a Graham & Dodd Award, and I hope it isn't the last because we need a lot more stuff like this. @"BlackHat" ran away with it this week with his thread Idea Generation... and Why Wall Street Sucks at It. He broke down the various processes he uses to generate investment ideas, and I'm proud to say I learned a lot from it. The post brought in 6 Silver Bananas and a Tweet (mine). If you haven't read it yet, go check it out.

Most Active Monkeys:

@"AcctNerd" was the rabbit this week with 244 banana points, setting the bar pretty high. @"BTbanker" was next in line with 125 banana points, and @"Marcus_Halberstram" rounded out the triple-digit club with 100 banana points straight up. Nice going, fellas.

New WSO Certified Users:

I wanted to take the space here to thank and congratulate the new Certified Users from the past week. Welcome to the club. Some of these are new members, but all have confirmed that they work in the indicated industry at the level selected on their profile. All Certified Users have a gold star next to their usernames when posting in the forums, so you all know which sources you can trust the most. As WSO Certified Users, they get i) 3 months free to the WSO Job Board ($45 Value), ii) access to the private Certified User chat room to network with other professionals (priceless) and iii) a free ticket to attend the 2014 WSO Annual Conference in New York on June 28 ($200 Value!). Without further ado:

Investment Banking
@ibanker1244 - Generalist - 1st Year Analyst
@Ar2rocuevAs - Mergers and Acquisitions - 1st Year Analyst

Private Equity
@Wmgwebb12 - LBOs - 3rd+ Year Analyst

Sales & Trading
@CrashDavis12 - Equities - 1st Year Analyst

Consulting
@acronym - 2nd Year Analyst
@swordfish24 - 3rd+ Year Analyst

Hedge Fund
@terps17 - 1st Year Associate

corporate finance
@Poff - Manager

Asset Management
@paulydreamer - 1st Year Analyst

Accounting
@TDSWIM - Associate Consultant

Are you a working professional and you're interested in joining the WSO Certified User club? E-mail [email protected] and [email protected] your username and send a link to your LinkedIn profile.