As the title mentions I moved from a fixed income EB S&T program to a BB associate IBD - WSO is heavily under represented in S&T so I can answer some q's about what it looks like across various desks as I wish I knew more prior to joining.
Background is from a non-target school with good grades and great internships but from an econ / finance backround -- nothing terribly challenging. Did a year in Corporate Rates Derivs Sales & a year in in Flow Trading so ive seen what all the teams look like and where the analysts try to exit to.
ask me anything that might be helpful.
1. What kind of technical skills would you recommend for an incoming trading SA? Thinking specifically about the more rates/macro type desks.
2. What prompted the move from rates derivs sales to trading? Generally interested to get your thoughts on sales as a future career, seeing as the S in S&T gets a lot of hate on some of these message boards from people who've never actually sat in the seat.
Definitely. I would be cautious as to the advice given here in S&T.
1. Technical skills for SA trading include being incredibly quick with mental math. You need to know your spot delta PNL risk given a 1 bp change in x and how that affects your positions in Y & Z. Its not terribly complicated mental math but you definitely need to be comfy enough where reaching for a calculator feels slower. You also need to know excel like the back of your hand as the various pricing models need to be updated constantly and if you can run your desks PNL and keep the pricing models alive without having to get the quant on it-- huge stuff. For rates you need to know duration, convexity etc for FX idiosyncratic risks for specific countries, for FX Vol the greeks. It is very dependent desk to desk. if you have a specific desk lmk.
Other than that its more soft skills... but dont overlook the soft skills. You will not get PNL until after you pass your exams and are tested through dummy trades. This means 6 months into your first year. BTW All that nonsense you have read about not taking any positions is garbage. Your job is all about taking positions that are helped via the sales guys offloading risk through 2 way flow. That means you need to be able to lose 100+k as an analyst and be emotionally ok with that to where you resume trading as if nothing has happened. I think the most OVERLOOKED skill is the ability for your desk to like you. Take their banter on the chin, dont tell stupid stories and be genuinely interested what they have to say. dont ask questions when they just got smacked in the face by a bad PNL day.
2. I think as a whole trading is a bit more interesting. If you want to move to the HF seat or AM then trading is hands down the way to go. I loved my seat and thought it was like being in a casino haha. That being said going to a macro HF is very very very hard and btw not as comfy of a seat as some imagine - but that's a different topic.
If you do not want to go to a HF or AM seat then there is simply no reason to be in trading. Example: the g10 fx trader on the team would be awake for the asia open, asia close, london open, london close, ny open, ny close all the while to get picked off by algos and messy markets. You have to live eat and sleep trading in order to be successful on the as you are constantly on. On the whole, I think an average trader makes more $ than an average sales person for this reason.. but the reason or going into Derivs Sales is that the rainmaking exotics sales guy on the floor will outperform every single person. Example: MD at my bank came from another bank. He onboarded 3 new clients to my bank who liked him at his prior job. all 3 clients were responsible for 5mm in Trading + Sales PNL plus he maintained the other existing client relationsjips at the bank. That right there is 5mm in 'alpha' for the bank without ever taking a position and without ever losing a nights sleep if your product colapses overnight. That beings said.. without the relationship sales monkeys are easily transferable. If you want to go into sales pick the most tricky illiquid product and make absurdly deep relationships in the space. (people only trust you as a sales guy if you know what you are talking about)
Talent is so squeezed rn in FI s&t that it was 100%.
My buddy at nyu was one of the few looking to go into sales on the sell-side because it’s not in vogue. Just don’t mess up and have genuine interest and you will be fine. Getting there before everyone else does and staying awake all day with high energy is the hardest part for an SA. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is for kids to get to the office at 6:30am every day on the dot without having bags under their eyes from obviously going out the night prior. 10 weeks is so easy to just buckle up.