Monday @Mentions August 24, 2015

Happy Monday WSO! Interesting day to be in finance...

Upcoming events:

WSO Frankfurt Happy Hour - Fri Aug 28th, 7pm - Bull & Bear, posted by @Monkey in Acquisitions".

Upcoming webinars:

-Webinar: Private Equity Case Study: RJR Nabisco -- 5pm ET, 8/25/15
-Webinar: How to get a Hedge Fund Job out of Undergrad -- 7pm ET, 8/27/15
-Webinar: The peril of emerging market investing -- 7pm ET, 8/30/15

Upcoming webinar rewinds on the WSO Frontpage (replays of old webinars you may have missed, free for 24 hours):

BB TMT Associate - Week in the Life, 8/26/2015
MSF to Banking Transition, 8/28/2015
Building a Career in Fintech (from a Finance background), 8/29/2015

Posts of the Week:

Everything by user @Mr. Pink Money"
Random Musings on the HF Interview Process
Random musings that sound like venting

Discussion Topics of the Week:

Why YOU Aren't Converting Your Interview - DCF Example (No Math) by @TorontoMonkey1328". 28 comments +. If you keep posting I'll keep adding awe inspiring images to your posts, deal.

AMA of the Week:

AMA 2 years MBB > PE by @skdude". 3 SB's. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions!

Comment of the Week:

This comment: by @Lexington55" in the post "Would you choose Hedge Funds all over again?".

Am I deeply unsatisfied with my work? yes and no. I had certain pretenses coming into the industry... in college I read about Soros and Tudor and the heroic shit that they did. I thought AUM would be sticky and that people tolerated risk and the swings as long as your ideas were solid.

Well, all those assumptions I had about the industry was wrong. AUM is never sticky enough. institutions rather have consistent low vol return w/o drawdowns. the only guys I know who are doing deep dive, long-term macro stuff are essentially old guards turned family offices.

I interned at a bulge bracket six years ago in S&T to know that sell side is where your soul and dream goes to die. my end game was indeed trading macro, but I knew I wasn't going to accomplish that making money off bid/ask on the rates desk (although some people are able to make the transition).

Parts of me wish I had set my eyes on something else besides HF in college.. back then, HF seemed like the promise land. now that I had the chance to sit on a PM seat and now that I'm a bit older, I realize that you can make seven figures (btw, I'm nowhere close to clearing seven figures this yr.. my book is up just 2%...sigh) in a lot less stressful way and by doing something more meaningful.

Yes, looking at price action and working/talking w/ smart people are few things that I like about the job. but the entire HF culture is broken and it reinforces negativity. if any of you guys work on the sales desk at BB, you guys know very well how retarded the system of perpetual ass kissing is. you are constantly wined and dined and you deal with some of the fakest people in the world. I'm forced to go to and maintain relationships w/ fake people so that I might actual get some color on flow beyond what's published as "XYZ firm view for Q1". some guys enjoy it, but I don't...

Look I get that for some, finance is the be-all and end-all... and that's great. but you will also find a lot of guys who have made it pretty far in the industry espousing the same views as I do. sometimes on sites/community like this, we put certain things on a pedestal... and opinions that chip away at the glory of what many consider to be their end game is obviously not going to be popular.

However, I think OP asked a fair question and thus I thought I would share mine. nothing more.

Most Active Monkeys in the past 30 days:

1. @DickFuld" 280, 2. @anonymousbro" 247, and 3. @thebrofessor" with 189.

See where you rank here.