Barclays vs. Citi vs. CS S&T SA Offer

Traditionally, Barclays has been very strong in S&T. They are great at equity options- particularly the indices- as well as everything fixed income and the exchange-traded commodities in general.

I might be giving a different answer for IBD or Research, but I'd lean towards Barclays for an S&T role, assuming this is NYC.

Barclays still gets beaten by JPM, GS, and Morgan Stanley in trading if you don't know which group you're going to. But they're still one of the better BB firms for S&T.

CS and Citi are good places to work, too and I don't think there is a wrong choice in the decision. If you liked a particular group of interviewers (you will likely work for or with at least a few of them), there is no harm in making your decision off of the people who interviewed you and the nonverbal signals they were sending. I've been a bit of a Barclays booster here, but if the folks who interviewed you looked tired and miserable, don't take the offer.

But if you can't decide off of the people, and you liked the people at Barclays, I'd think long and hard about it.

I have some experience with all three. They are all solid S&T shops with their respective strengths; ceteris paribus, I would favor the US bank over the European bank in this climate.

If you look at FICC revenues Citi is second only to JPM

Barclays - fixed income CS - equity Citi - if you want to work in a sweatshop

US banks were great for the last couple of years while the fed was on the printing mill. I would worry as they've over hired as opposed to the Europeans.

Barclays is really weak in equity. Yea they made a couple of hires on the index option side 3 years ago - but it's no where near as competitive as CS. They are still building up their equity research product for crying out loud!

for overall FICC, Barclays and Citi are stronger overall(talking about NY here). I believe in general Citi is stronger in FX, EM, and munis and Barcap in credit. Not sure who is stronger in rates, commodities, or securitized products.

Barclays as a whole is much stronger in S&T than the other two. After buying Lehman I think they really stepped up their game although if you want to do equities, I probably would choose another bank because they are still building it up.

If you want to do FICC though, Barclays is probably top 3 or top 4 (behind JPM/GS/MS)..but their HY/IG credit desks are def #1 or sometimes #2 on the street, especially the high yield guys. FX i think DB/CS are a bit stronger but as a whole barclays is def known as a credit house.

I do think though if you do equities, I would NOT go Barclays...def very weak. And new regulation will be rough in terms of how it affects european banks

Isn't MS considered one of the worst for FICC?

I wouldn't say that Barclays is stronger than Citi in S&T. If anything I think Citi may be stronger overall. I've always heard that JPM, GS, Citi, and DB were the best for FICC. Also, MS top 3 in FICC? Wtf?

Sorry - just grouped MS out of habit. MS is def stronger/strongest in equities, but yeah not as strong in FICC. Not sure how good Citi is in FICC...I'm only saying this because other banks are all stronger at one area (Barclays credit/rates, DB currencies, etc etc)

Give up trying to make an informed decision...there are too many variables at work. You have no way of knowing stuff like pnl of each desk, pnl per headcount for each desk (and even them, how do you know the distribution of pnls...could be just one or two guys making all the desk's money), management style (more prone to cater to clients with aggressive prices or care more about positioning their own book the way they like), yada yada. All this varies both across different desks at the same firm and across the same desk at different firms.

I will note though that you shouldn't count out a bank just because they are a smaller player in FICC like CS (disclaimer I don't work there). First off there are good desks/people at every bank. And if the franchise isn't doing so great and turnover is high, there are more opportunities for you to move up quicker and take your swing. Also these days, "good at FICC" kinda means "sees a lot of flow". "2nd tier" players that don't see a lot of flow may be more lenient with letting traders take directional risk in order to make money. Depending on your longer term goals (hedge fund) this is potentially better training than crossing bid/ask all day. A bit counterintuitive but worth considering too.

Even if you pick the "best" bank you could very well end up on a shit desk...I would rather do FX options at CS than repo or some other shit at Citi. Then you also have to think about finding a "jungle guide" as Michael Lewis puts it...don't underestimate the importance of this...and it's something you have close to zero influence over by just selecting a firm.

The Top 5 in FICC are also habitually the Top 5 in S&T because FICC is at least twice as big as Equities in general - in no particular order, GS/DB/Citi/JPM/Barcap; some of them, such as GS, are also very strong in equities. As I said originally, I have some familiarity with each of the three banks discussed here.

As before, ceteris paribus, you want to go to an American bank - European and British regulators are squelching any competitiveness out of their banks and their ability to keep the right people; that affects Barcap.

CS is smaller than the others, but it doesn't mean they're worse; just more concentrated in their strengths. They are a high quality S&T shop in certain desks - particularly good at HY, Equities and Mortgages, for example.

Citi is generally strong across the board in S&T but its strategic challenge is probably 'too big to succeed' and all that entails for the experience of working there.

Citi is best for fx and em and is also strong in rates (3rd ish globally after barcap and deutsche), barcap is best of the three in credit and rates , CS is best in equities - barcap and Citi equities is pretty weak , citi commods is weak and i think barcap recently shut down their commod shop. Definitely between barcap and citi. FICC is the revenue maker, from there it depends which asset class you favour and which culture/people you like best.

Imfuture and jtbb have the right insights that are coherent to my understandings aswell

Does anyone know where to find league tables for S&T, specifically FICC?