Best Trading Desks in S&T
I'm going to be a trading intern this summer and the placement process for rotations is coming up soon. I was wondering what the best desks are considering the following factors:
1. Exit Opportunities
2. Salary/bonus size once you get your own book
3. Automation/redundancy Risk
Are there any other relevant factors that I should consider like work-life balance? Additionally, I want to say that I understand that desk strength varies from bank to bank and that a desk's people/culture can make or break your experience. I'm asking what the best desks are all other things equal.
I have coding and math experience so desks like equity and credit derivatives won't be an issue for me. I'd like to be on a desk where I can code, but by no means is that a dealbreaker.
jpm?
If you want to code, you can go into derivative products. Alternatively, a lot of banks are doing eTrading and quant trading market making nowadays. That's more algorithmic, so the exits are different, can lead to quant trading at a prop shop. Would also say any algo/systematic desk will have WAY better WLB because your algos do 90% of the work.
Overall agree, but imo Rates (maybe excluding repo/etc) better than FX for point (1). Rates more likely to get book/defined ownership (e.g. buckets of curve/sector of vol surface) whereas FX/FXO books shared across global centers. Also, better RV training + exit ops in rates (more buyside teams that are solely rates focused). Happy to hear if others disagree.
[NB. not talking about e-desks (which exist in FX / credit / rates /commods /etc) as those are different jobs than discretionary market making. ]
However, agree with above: you'll get paid on whichever desk you can do the best on (and it will certainly help if the desk is making lots of money!)
[EDIT: plenty of other good desks as well, as pointed out in other comments]
what are the exits like for eTrading? Is there any room to move to a discretionary HF or is it solely prop shops
On the Macro Credit / Credit Derivs team and it’s certainly a good fit if you like to code
Regarding the code, is coding in S&T mostly for risk and pricing the derivs? Or does it also include trade execution?
second everyone here; rates is good. if you don't like macro, cdx, distressed credit, and equity derivatives are some other good options
I’d make an argue for securitized product derivatives and NL Rates over everything else tbh. The more complex and opaque the product, the more money the desk gets per clip traded. Obv desk budget plays a huge role asw and in general you dont get bigger than MBS and rates for allocation.
bump
The more illiquid and quant should be better
Those 2 don't match up ? Don't you mean the more illiquid and less quant the better or the more liquid and more quant the better.
Rates or credit exotics is a prime example of illiquid and quantitative
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