Hello everyone,
To give some background - I'm a sophomore at a target school with 4.0 and a MM summer analyst position coming up next summer.
I've researched ibanking quite a bit(as I had to for interviews and such), however I do not know much about Sales and Trading beyond what Vault or my analyst friends can provide. Their advice tends to be very vague because they don't understand the specifics of day to day work.
So...a few questions:
- How many traders normally work at a single trading desk?
- What kind of training do they receive in order to perform?
- How stable/unstable is income? (Real example would be nice if possible.)
- What sort of specific tasks are performed in order to execute trades and perform well?
- What different skills are needed for trading different products?
Thanks for the help, Hammy
Task of a trader: make money any way possible (if it's illegal don't get caught)
But point by point:
I think it's unusual (in my limited experience) for trading desks to go beyond 10 people, mine is 5.
Training, in a practical sense is all on the job - I've had days having nothing but working out obscure FX rates to make sure it was ingrained into me.
Income is fairly stable to start with
Electonic trades are usually booked automatically, voice trades need booking manually and then u need to know how to work your risk software and monitor your positions. Actually tasks? electronic - click a button, voice - press a point and talk
kinda a vague question! juniors always need math skills (if only as it's cheap for HR to filter applicants this way - and they r genuinely useful on most desks). You should be good at using excel, to VBA level, quick to learn and thick skinned, able to drink a copious amount of alcohol and live on a few hours sleep a night, accept numerous free gifts and god I love my job!
free gifts? from who?
from whom?
;)
sounds like the job for me
BBand, thanks for your answers, they've definitely helped -
To clarify question #5 and get at my original intent behind the question....
*What kind of specific skills would one need to trade different products...i.e. FX vs. derivatives vs. high yield debt...etc?
I'm wondering mostly about the importance of different quant./fund. skills and "mental math" abilities.
Anybody know?
Also, more questions!
(Seems like a no-brainer if you are entry-level, but follow up to my next question):
Success depends on decisions, so naturally I would want to understand all of those made by the rainmakers...!
what's the best way to learn VBA?
vba is a programming language the same way mspaint is an image editing software. it's just that incredibly easy to pick up and use. I don't think there is any incentive to learn it since if you're going to be needing it for something then you can easily f1 and figure out on what you gotta do in seconds.
As someone who used to be a CS guy, and knows the "real" programming languages (Java, C#, etc.), this is false. You cannot expect someone with no background in programming to "F1" and start cranking out VBA code.
brokers take us out and give us stuff all the time - as well as on some desks the senior staff treat the more junior members, a friend has been given a gold money clip for example and we're all going to race some porsches in couple of months. No matter how drunk/hungover you are though u must come in the next day - u might get sent home but come in!
'*What kind of specific skills would one need to trade different products...i.e. FX vs. derivatives vs. high yield debt...etc?'
well FX is very much mental maths ork out one side of a spot using conventional spots and quickly spread it, this has to be done lightening fast to get the customer's interest and long term I think they tend to rely on technical analysis - naturally with a lot of macro/fundamental input.
Derivs in general r much more quant driven - a general rule and there's a huge amount of variety here.
As for q 1, when I started at a small fund I had no freedom and they got mightily pissed off when I deviated from bobl-bund spreads, at a BB if u think u have an idea and can convince someone it's feasible desk will most likely go with it.
and VBA can be a little more complicated than that devin
you had me at "racing porsches"
uh, its pretty self explanatory to do the most basic of things. all dyou need is a book on vba and if your smart enuf to do 'custom' code. to do basic things you can just record macros already ;)
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