offer compare: Nomura S&T option desk VS blackrock PAG, active investment analytics (NY)

Question

Greatly appreciate your opinion. Little bit about me, non-target school with 1.25 yr working experience at a BB in quantitative analytics role. BR pay slightly less than NM. But its not a concern for me.

I like both opportunities and I know they drive me towards completely different directions. The struggle is like this: 
Blackrock > Nomura
S&T > PAG

Any input from you guys?

rabe · Accepted Answer

Congrats on the fantastic offers!

This really depends on your desired career path and your risk preferences. PAG will help you develop more widely applicable skills if you decide to branch out into, say, other areas of quant, or if you decide to exit finance. S&T will be less stable, but will have enormous potential upside if you end up being a great trader. Unfortunately the skills aren't highly transferable, so you might have a tough time finding a role outside finance should you eventually decide to pursue something else.

traderlife · Answer

Is the lack of exit opportunities for traders really that true?

I feel like they might lack a direct path like other jobs.  But traders today are not the same intelligent types as floor traders 30 years ago that really lacked exit ops.

I’ve seen guys leave trading last 5 years or so and the ones with top 25 schools all ended up ok.  One ended up hedge fund execution while getting mba and kkr recruiting contacted him(in Texas. So probably not as competitive).  One ended up coo of beer company.  All the SoftBank guys I believe are derivative guys.

rabe · Answer

Ultimately experience in high finance is still experience in high finance; being a trader at a large multinational bank will certainly set one up for the future better than 99% of other jobs. My personal preference though would probably be for the analytics role just because I like more technical work - and arguably, Blackrock is a bigger name that Nomura.

rabe · Answer

These are really broad terms, but by quant trading I mean actual quantitative/automated trading desks/firms, so in terms of sell-side desks, STS/ATS at GS/JPM, and then on the buy-side, Jump, Virtu, Tower... The difference is that in traditional S&T, trades are not done systematically.

There isn't any rule on which firms' traders are mostly operations-focused, and which do research - just varies based on organizational structure.

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offer compare: Nomura S&T option desk VS blackrock PAG, active investment analytics (NY)

Elite Career Bootcamp. Top Job Offer Guaranteed.

Elite Career Bootcamp. Top Job Offer Guaranteed.

offer compare: Nomura S&T option desk VS blackrock PAG, active investment analytics (NY)

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