Moving up from STIR Trading - Toronto
Hello
I'm an associate trader at one of the Big 5 Canadian Banks in Toronto on a STIR desk (think money markets, repo, fx forwards... etc). I trade a shared book with two other senior traders (Director and MD). I'm a top performer: great reviews, above average comp, grind out good trade ideas, significant CFA completion... etc.
I'm not sure where to go from here as I'm left wanting more. Turnover in my division will be very slow for the next several years, I know the guys on my desk aren't going anywhere (mortgages + kids). Attitudes on risk are getting more conservative, senior guys are more complacent than they probably should be.
I know this advice gets thrown around here alot, but I would like to trade more complicated products, swaps or IR/FX options.
My three options are:
a) Internal transfer - ask to be moved. I'm not sure though how to bring this up, our group is decently tight knit. I have a decent math background, (aced a difficult derivatives course at a target school on exchange), but I'm worried that because I'm not an engineer from Waterloo or Mcgill it won't be seen as a natural transition.
b) Gradschool - I'm fairly certain I could get into a decently quantitative master's in finance program, either LSE or MIT, or look at an MBA in ~2 years and take quant electives.
c) Lateral - I have a decent network of other traders at my own level (associate) mostly in Toronto but I'm not sure if this would be enough to make a move. I'm definitely open to moving to NY/London, just not sure about how to go about it.
My seat will be safe in the short term, but I can't imagine needing 3+ people on my desk, I think most of our division is fairly bloated in terms of headcount, which is keeping compensation a bit lower than it should be. I don't like the uncertainty of the idea of staying around hoping that someone senior would get laid off though for me to move up.
Hi, why don't you try them all at roughly the same time?
Say you start preparing applications for Masters Programmes during the Summer. Before that, you have plenty of time to network heavily and look for other roles in NYC/London. Later this year, after you see the results of networking and you receive your applications' results you could also try to move internally. Bear in mind that application can be extremely time consuming (GMAT, References, Motivational essays, etc) Networking seems the best option in my view.
Good luck!
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