Trader Bonus Across the Street

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information regarding trading bonuses as they relate to PnL? For example, JPM and GS traditionally pay about 5% of PnL in bonus compensation, while BAML pays 3% (hypothetical, totally untrue, just to illustrate my question).

Essentially, which banks are known for paying their traders a greater portion of PnL relative to other BB's?

5 Comments
 

Agree with second poster. Just to add though, fixed % of your PnL is still possible but at senior levels and those numbers are down since the crisis. People now also think in terms of stock value since shares were paid out as part of bonus.

I know for obvious reasons that GS and JPM aint that great 'always' for bonuses for junior levels (talking 2010-2012). A trader friend who worked at one of the two you mentioned made it clear just because these are top brands people are assuming they get paid heavy bonuses but that's not the case.

A particular US bank I have friends at confirmed for year 2-3 analysts and above banks don't really consider prop P&L to determine bonuses.

When on the buy-side my manager interviewed analysts as he was looking to expand team size. Surprisingly guys from EM banks were significantly overpaid than UBS and ML. I'm not sure how much to believe this but yeah, there are numbers out there that will blow your mind.

 

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