First time poster - thanks to all for the solid advice on this site.
I'll be starting as an equity sales analyst in the next few weeks and am wondering what kind of preparation I can do with my free time? Only graduated recently so have no experience in the field.
Anything from Excel to research analysis, valuation methods, understanding of financial metrics (EPS, P/E, EV/EBITDA, Cash Flows etc). I have a general knowledge of these but what do you think I should concentrate my time on learning?
Prepare to be everybody's bitch. Where are you starting, at a BB?
Actually a Mid-Market. Completely understand a lot of admin, organizing BS to be done. But I do think some preparation will help for when I start off - just looking for some direction on where to start.
I'm at a MM too. Been here for two months, don't have licenses yet but I probably won't get the opportunity to talk to clients or anything until at least 1yr deep.
All I do now is admin stuff.
Also, every guy here (there are 2 traders 3 sales guys) says this is a dying business and not the place to be. I still want to get the experience of talking to buy-side PM's about stocks, but don't think I want this for a long term career any longer. My immediate goal though is to move into a jr sales role to start getting experience getting in front of guys, managing relationships, talking about stocks etc, that will be valuable anywhere I try to go next in finance.
But very grateful still for the role because I love the stock market, am on a trading floor and am happy to do anything I can to help the team. Also have an awesome MD and he knows about my goals and is very supportive, so I am very grateful, but anywhere you go you gotta start at the bottom pretty much unless you come out with an MBA.
In the same boat - delighted to get into this environment and still young so there's plenty to learn without worrying about it being a dying industry.
Any tips on the first few months starting out? Taking notes, staying organised, helping with pretty much anything - lot of admin but got to make a good impression starting off.
Ya, take notes. Also organize your outlook, you should pretty much have folders for everything. Keep shortcuts on your desktop. Just make it your goal to be as efficient and fast as possible at getting everything accomplished. Try not to make mistakes. It's all about creating processes for everything and staying super organized. Feel free to pm me as well when you start working. Would be interested to hear how similar our jobs are. Also, you gotta be confident, especially if you want to get into sales, more specifically institutional/equity sales. Make sure you know everything that is going on in the market (hopefully you already do because this is a capital markets role), You should know where the S&P is trading, commodities, interest rates etc. Just be well versed in the market and read the WSJ or FT daily. If you have somebody training you take notes on every process so when they leave you won't need a lot of help.
Great stuff mate, really helpful. I'll take that on board and will keep in touch when I start off - thanks!
*duplicate
@beast mode trader: Don't you have access to a terminal and constant market data in your role or doesn't the OP you're speaking with? I think the WSJ daily may be overkill because you're already exposed to it constantly in real time.
Equity sales is a difficult jobs area for a number of reasons discussed on various threads here.
Make your team happy by doing absolutely any grunt work and keep listening very carefully to kind of stuff they talk with clients. i.e. the way they pitch a stock or discuss results. Start following up companies that your managers cover. Find anything possible about the firm that they haven't heard before. I managed to highlight specific prices which pretty much every bank we spoke with refused to have access to; this helped a lot. There is always stuff worth looking at and spending hours on. Communication is key - keep it short and sweet but know the story so you can talk for a good amount of time on it. i.e. this company beat for x,y,z reasons and stock down 5% is a common format but then read the damn report from company website and find footnotes etc. Usually research guys do this but if you can manage to teach yourself this as sales, will help a lot.
Then also get closer to research guys as much as possible because at least in my opinion when it comes to equity sales research guys are idea generators. Sales guys usually play around consensus numbers and have a feel for results etc. A lot of our sales people were ex-research so we liked discussing stuff with them.
Also do seriously consider learning products where sales people are still in demand or even think about moving to research if equity is what you want to do. Trading is quite automated and boring.
You will certainly have a better feel once on the floor.
Thanks for the advice here mate. Will also check out Barrons, cheers @traderdaily.
I do have access to the morning notes so will start researching the industries covered and how our message is put across. I guess familiarity is key at the beginning while keeping an open mind to suggestions, market color etc.
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