Sales Trading vs Equity Research help

Hey guys,

I am a having doubts whether to focus my summer apps for equity research or sales trading, and I need help.

So In have experience in both of these industries, and both of them excite me and have their specific pros & cons.

I love writing, building models and analyzing companies in depth, and the fact that I would be able to focus on a specific sector is very interesting to me as it is knowledge I could use in the long term if I want to transition to a hedge fund. However I miss the interpersonal and active part of sales trading, that you are constantly talking with clients, analyzing market news, and executing orders. 

My worries for entering sales trading is that this pathway is on the decline, whether we like it or not, the tendency for electronic operations to continue rising is very high. I am also worried about landing an internship with a trade desk that is not very active, or not given many tasks. 

Any suggestions? Also for execution services and sales trading, to what extent is mathematical aptitude and being able to process numbers extremely fast an important skill. I am good with numbers but I'm not insane like math or physics majors, and I wouldn't like my interviews to be focused on those. 

My heart says sales trading but my mind says ER is the way to go.

Cheers

3 Comments
 

Do you mean Sales & Trading or specifically a sales trader role? Sales trading is a subset of S&T that only executes on behalf of clients and does not hold a book of risk. In my opinion, this is one of the lamer S&T desks and I would go with research in a heartbeat. If you are referring to S&T generally, there are still tons of desks that are intellectually stimulating and are not at risk of automation, so I would not be deterred

 

So this place I am applying specifically, it is only sales trading, they don't have just traders. 

Even though they don't have a book of risk, don't they get in constant calls with pms and isntiuttional clients and advise when to buy or sell or is it more just executing with the best price and thats that. 

Thanks for the help

 

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