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What does an average day in the life look like for you?
I’m on the structuring side so here’s a typical day for me at a high level: -catch up on news -check in with sales on any reverse inquiries from clients -check in with traders to refresh market levels for pricing -work on some ideas that might be compelling and work with sales to push -price and execute live deals
What skills/background are traditional for structuring at a Canadian Bank? Math/Statistics undergrads? Are graduate degrees usually required or can you get in to the role from undergrad through an S&T rotation?
How has your role changed as technology has evolved? Any talk around your desk about ML? Or is it kind of just dismissed as ineffective classification models?
How would you compare the Canadian S&T space to roles in NY or London in regards to desk volume, compensation, long term outlook?
Thanks
People definitely come in through the undergraduate S&T rotation but more often from engineering/CS type programs rather than pure business/finance type programs (these guys land on less quantitative desks just fine though). People also come in from MBAs though again those with a more quantitative undergrad.
I haven’t seen ML play any meaningful role on the FO side yet but definitely heard of projects in the MO/BO using NLP to automate trade verification/confirms etc. largely as a cost saving measure.
I only have anecdotes about cities like London/NY and based on these I can tell you that comp is definitely lower in Toronto. My guess is that it has more to do with the fact that people don’t really move around that much between banks here, whereas in the bigger cities people move all the time creating a much more competitive employment market for these roles. That being said, the comp is still solid in Toronto.
what range would you consider solid comp for structured rates. perhaps you can generalize by level. having been on buyside most of my career, i always am curious and the posts on comp are always for entry level.
What kind of work do interns on rotation do?
My interns usually spend their days on maintaining/improving pricing tools and helping with drafting trade tickets. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s plenty to fill the day given a lot of our deals are highly structured and need to be decomposed into several components when booking into our FO systems.
could an old school manual bond trader (who does well in that role) find a place on a structured rates desk? how so?
I haven’t heard of any real examples of this, but that’s not to say it’s impossible. I can say that my job and the job of the guys on the cash rates desk is worlds apart. One would have to invest a lot of time and effort to fill the gaps in order to make a move from one to the other, and I imagine most people don’t have the motivation to do so. That’s probably the main reason why there aren’t examples I’ve seen rather than any fundamental barrier.
What advice do you have for someone well out of UG looking to break in?
It’s challenging to be honest, and that’s coming from someone with a non-traditional background because I didn’t come in through the S&T rotation. I got lucky because I was working in a different part of the bank that worked closely with this desk, and it gave me the opportunity to cultivate senior level relationships on the trade floor that ultimately made it happen when a suitable role opened up in the business. It’s certainly not common for people from corporate functions to land on a desk, but when it happens it’s usually from groups like market risk, product control, treasury etc.
Feel free to PM me about your specific circumstances and I can tell you what path I think might be worth pursuing, but without details all I can really say is try to find a role that works as closely with the desk you want to land on as possible, and find a way to add real value to the business from that role. And don’t care too much about levels (I.e be willing to take a lower level role in the FO because comp wise you’ll be at least flat right away but will have much more upside)
what is the minimal amount of "quant skill" needed to join a structured rates desk?
Hard to give a minimum but I can tell you that I have a grad degree in math and others on the desk have similar backgrounds as me. I’ve found that having studied math at a fairly advanced level has made it easier for me to develop intuition around pricing and the risks involved with the more exotic structures (the myriad cross-gammas for instance). That’s not to say that you can’t develop intuition purely through experience though.
how do you hedge a callable range accrual....joking (;
Depends on the index :)
Trick question - who do you think got hurt the most in the recent rate move? I heard some names and numbers that certainly raised my eyebrows
I’ve heard some shocking stuff too but would rather not say ;)
why not?
Hi guys, i'll come back to you on your questions this evening hopefully. I actually wrote this AMA weeks ago while waiting at an airport but it took a while for it to make it onto the forum.
Cheers.
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