Is this how Wall Street works?

I'm not saying this is all jobs on Wall Street but I am wondering if this is how it works in general.

You are an individual. You make deals with other people. Sometimes you make money, sometimes you lose money. You get paid money if you make money with some deals but you don't have any liability if you lose money on the other deals. So, at the end of the day(or year), there is unlimited upside to your salary or commission and little to no downside.

Here is an example. You have a stock pick. You have 100 clients. You tell 50 of your clients to buy the stock because you want them to think it will go up. You tell the other 50 clients to short because you want them to believe the stock will go down. At the end of the day, based on how the stock price went, you made money for half of your clients in which you will get a bonus and lose the same amount of money with the other half in which you personally do not have to pay back and have no liability. Ultimately, you share the fruits with the winners but do not share the pain with the losers.

How is my analogy?

18 Comments
 

Add in the fact that clients will repeat business,. Add in the fact that you may have (as a stockbroker, which is your example) extremely low base salary, but have expensive fixed living costs. Add in the fact that you can get fired.

This is not how it works. Your clients will be short lived if you treat them this way. Without clients you are without money, and without money you are without a job. That is downside risk. Maybe you keep your job, but are paid poorly. Even if your poor pay is enough to keep you afloat, if it is less than the next best available opportunity, that is also downside risk.

You are very far off the mark.

 

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