JP Morgan Trade Capture??

Hey all,

Can anyone shed any light into a Trade Capture Analyst role?

Below is the job description. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks,

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Description:
J.P. Morgan is creating a Global Derivatives Business for the newly-branded Worldwide Securities Services (WSS) business. The move comes as a response to the increasing complexity of outsourced client portfolios and the very strong trend towards a diversification of clients into derivative activity.

The purpose of the Derivatives Business will be to provide Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives support to institutional clients, asset managers, hedge funds and insurance companies who have outsourced part or all of their operations to J.P. Morgan. Client scope will include all existing relationships including recent flagship deals. In addition the Utility will be supporting other groups within the WSS business in respect of derivative activity (e.g. the Derivatives Collateral Management product - CommanD).

Core Responsibilities

Key components of the role will be:

Ensure the accurate and timely input of trades onto the system
Maintaining the clients portfolios during the transition
Processing all terminations into trade capture systems
Processing all interest payments
Ensure all of the Market Values extracted from the valuation system and are in line with third party valuations
To provide system training and integrate the new operating processes into business as usual

Core Services

Key components of the product will be:

· Valuation - take-on of the client transaction and daily valuation across all derivatives (credit, equity and interest rate)
· Accounting Service - on the basis of the valuation
· Lifecycle Management - trade maintenance, trade support
· Management of Settlement - including resolution of breaks
· Reconciliation Services - around valuation, cash and confirmation processes
· Supporting Collateral Valuations
· Analytics - management information detailing the basis for valuation, explanations of movements, market commentary

 

Yeah. It sounds like an ops job where you'll be on the phone with MarkIt/DTCC and the firm's counterparties working to tie out trades that traders booked. Not necessarily a dead-end, but it's not the most direct route to banking, sales and trading, or a front office position.

There's a lot of smart people in ops and it's a pretty stable career through the economic cycle (probably more stable long-term if you have a programming background), but if you want to make financial decisions rather than sort out the aftermath of financial decisions that don't line up with other decisions, ops probably isn't the place you want to be.

 
Best Response
analyst26:
no way this leads to FO at JP
I can't comment specifically on JP, but I know a lot of people who make it into trading from IT and ops at another BB that's in the top five for capital markets.

If you're already working with a trader as a lot of folks in ops do and he has a position open, you get a huge leg up on the competition that the trader doesn't already work with. An MIT Math degree with a 4.0 GPA might be great, but if the trader's already got a guy whom he's pretty sure is brilliant, the guy knows the products like the back of his hand, and he genuinely likes working with him, why would he hire anyone else if a TA position opens up and the ops guy wants it?

Fact: if you're smart and persistent, sneaking in the back door through a middle-office/back-office group isn't as impossible a way as some make it out to be to get to the trading floor. It's not the most direct route, but you just have to wait for the end of the next recession. They will need to start hiring people, and the first place managers will look is known quantities that don't require as much approval to bring in as those from outside while the firm is trying to control headcount. Actually, many guys who got hired into IT and Ops back in 2006/2007 made out a heckuvalot better than some of the guys hired into trading.

That said, obviously, unless you're betting on another 2008-esque crash this fall, it's probably better to land a TA gig at an MM or a number of trading firms rather than go into ops at even my bank if you really want to do trading.

 

its not impossible but its not likely, particularly at a place like JP that is so big. im willing to bet this job does not even sit on the same floor as the traders you'd work with which is a huge disadvantage. ive seen the move happen but its always from guys who are 1) on the desk or floor already 2) doing more than straight trade capture for the desk. id argue itd be better to find a middle office TA role than this as at least in that role you'd be more involved in the risk/p&l of the desk so you get a better overall picture of how things work.

 
analyst26:
its not impossible but its not likely, particularly at a place like JP that is so big. im willing to bet this job does not even sit on the same floor as the traders you'd work with which is a huge disadvantage. ive seen the move happen but its always from guys who are 1) on the desk or floor already 2) doing more than straight trade capture for the desk. id argue itd be better to find a middle office TA role than this as at least in that role you'd be more involved in the risk/p&l of the desk so you get a better overall picture of how things work.
If I may ask, which middle-office groups have TAs? Risk management is the classic definition of middle-office, and I think most of the analysts there assist risk managers rather than traders. Are you referring to analytics, accounting, or another group?

Also, if you're supporting a product that's currently dealt OTC but might change to exchange trading (IE: CDS products), you'll have a lot of great exit opps when the product goes exchange-traded. The ops guys know the traps and features of the products better than many traders in some cases, and that's what it takes for a prop shop to move into trading a new product.

 

the middle office role is called a TA at many places, i categorize this spot as trade capture, risk, p&l, break resolution, maybe even some shadow pricing with the desk, essentially doing anything the desk needs besides trading. now this may differ by product group but I know CS, Deutsche, JP, Barclays, SocGen call these roles a TA even though they are not FO. When Bear was around MO was called TA's as well. there are other firms where the TA actually reports to the desk and there is a clear delineation btw a TA & MO, BOA, RBS, BNP, Calyon are a few I know of.

 

it is possible, but not probable.

up til a few months ago, my bb's MO works in a completely different building than the traders they calculate PnL for. now they are in same building. but more than 10 floors apart.

the only interaction they have is talking on phone/email. and both sides kind of dislike each other . the MO people think traders are too demanding and can never admit when they are wrong. the traders get angry when their MO calculates something wrong. there has been instances where the traders straight up yell at my MO friends over the phone. can get ugly.

the BOs have it worse. some of them work in a separate building, most work from a different city.

i think MO -> FO works well when the traders are chill and are the type that wants to build up good relationship with their MO. dont think there are too many of them. most couldn't give a shit. also, it is true that MOs know their products well. but the skillsets are so different. MO for credit trading knows how to calculate PnL for CDS and cash corp bonds, but have no idea how they actually trade/what moves them/the fundamentals behind them/why traders make those trades today. most of the MO work revolves around existing macros to calculate PnL so they themselves may not even know much in depth/really just clicking lots of buttons...my MO friends are NOT happy...

be happy that you have a job. but realize you need to network pretty hard and be pretty lucky to get into the spot you want.

 
untilted:
it is possible, but not probable.

up til a few months ago, my bb's MO works in a completely different building than the traders they calculate PnL for. now they are in same building. but more than 10 floors apart.

the only interaction they have is talking on phone/email. and both sides kind of dislike each other . the MO people think traders are too demanding and can never admit when they are wrong. the traders get angry when their MO calculates something wrong. there has been instances where the traders straight up yell at my MO friends over the phone. can get ugly.

For the record, we thought some of the traders weren't that smart some of the time. It's OK to be wrong if you're nice, or arrogant if you're right, but you look pretty dumb when you're wrong and you're yelling at people who are trying to explain to you the proof that they're correct. That said, if they've had the same problems three or four times and you've always been correct and push back twice as hard when they yell so you can explain why they're wrong, the more successful ones tend to really respect that. Maybe the traders shouldn't have to take pushback, but you've got every right to do what's necessary to effectively communicate when they've lost control of the situation and you have a reputation for knowing what you're talking about.

3/4 of the time where I used to work, the analytics guys were correct when a trader had a problem with a number. Shockingly, 20-30% of the time, the explanation was that they didn't understand some of the features of what they were holding and we had to explain what these features meant for their risk.

i think MO -> FO works well when the traders are chill and are the type that wants to build up good relationship with their MO. dont think there are too many of them. most couldn't give a shit. also, it is true that MOs know their products well. but the skillsets are so different. MO for credit trading knows how to calculate PnL for CDS and cash corp bonds, but have no idea how they actually trade/what moves them/the fundamentals behind them/why traders make those trades today.
You've got a point, but I'm not sure I totally agree with your conclusion. A lot of the analytics guys are also working with the research teams and institutional clients at the same time. The MO guys don't understand how the market works all the time, but they definitely need to understand the fundamentals, why someone would enter a trade, and sometimes be helpful in offering advice about what products make for a good hedge or a poor hedge to the buy side when they are acting really confused.

The traders definitely know a lot more about the mechanics of the market than the analytics guys and they're able to be a heckuvalot more decisive. That said, the analytics guys needed to know the basic market fundamentals and some of the hedging strategies at least as well as the traders seemed to understand their positions sometimes. :~\

If you've got a detailed product knowledge and can't transfer from ops or analytics into the front office after two or three years, you can probably get a spot at another firm if you're smart and aggressive enough.

most of the MO work revolves around existing macros to calculate PnL so they themselves may not even know much in depth/really just clicking lots of buttons...my MO friends are NOT happy...

be happy that you have a job. but realize you need to network pretty hard and be pretty lucky to get into the spot you want.

In some ways, the analytics, ops, and risk guys have a heckuvalot more license than they did two years ago. It's a strong market for a lot of these groups while a lot of firms have been trying to control costs, and a lot of front-office positions are opening up that require experience with these products. A few days after I was told we'd be moving into IT, I saw something for the first time that I'd never seen before- a manager in analytics started laughing at a trader who was yelling pretty seriously about a position. The manager just said the trader was wrong and that he could go F himself if he couldn't figure out why, and walked away. He probably knew that they couldn't fire him because it would be hard to find an adequate replacement if his was now an IT position.

Analytics was a lot of fun when it was part of the business (it was basically a trading floor kind of position that only carried the stress of research) and I originally planned to make a career of it, but when they told me we were moving into IT, I transferred into trading. The OP will probably be able to transfer out of ops after two years, too. (He may decide to stay if the focus on cost switches back to quality again.)

 
K7691:
Brooklyn, does anyone know if there is actually a trading desk in Brooklyn?

i don't work for JPM, but i will be surprised if there is a trading desk in brooklyn. their trading unit is located in midtown nyc. almost every bb has buildings in brooklyn/jersey city for IT/ops functions, but FO functions are run out of manhattan/stamford.

i know bear used to run some of their prime brokerage business out of brooklyn...

 

Now that you mentioned Bear, it is the old Bear Prime business b/c I was talking to someone and she was saying how they've been going through the integrations etc . . .

 

I would be shocked if there was a JP trading floor in Brooklyn. I would have to assume it would be even more difficult to transition if you don't have personal contact with the traders.

Jack: They’re all former investment bankers who were laid off from that economic crisis that Nancy Pelosi caused. They have zero real world skills, but God they work hard. -30 Rock
 

ok yeah. the brooklyn office is a new build out for the global derivatives services office.

so there is no trading floor there. it's a basic MO/BO (whatever you want to call it) role where you will look at stuff like derivative settlements, making sure the positions are correct in their reporting system and such.

in terms of trader interaction, i think it depends on the team that you get put on. i have heard that some of the clients there are hedge fund trading groups that don't feel like building out their own MO/BO, so you may have some interaction with them.

 

i suggest you try to get into JPmorgan's prime brokerage business... try to get into a margin/client services role. these roles are way more acceptive of candidates with MO/BO experience. That can be your first step, you will at least work on the trading floor in JPMorgan's main building in Manhattan.

then try for like a collateral trading/repo trading role, then gradually get to where you want to be.

3-step process.

 

Hey guys. I know this is an old topic but I have been offered the exact same position at credit suisse.

I am a computer engineer switching to finance and although I have some financial experience I don't think I will be offered a FO position directly.

My query is... How difficult or easy would it be to get an MBA or masters finance after holding a position such as this? My goal is to break into FO finance in the future (equity research to be specific).

Thanks in advance

 

Trade Capture Analyst sounds like an operations position- probably working in the booking process. Basically, the trader executes the trade, hands the trade slip off to you (or more likely enters it into an electronic system), and it's your job to make sure the trade gets accounted for and also the firm and counterparty agree on what just happened. Sitting in the group that priced a lot of positions, I sat three or four steps from the trade capture guys, but we would sometimes get emails from them. Someone who works in ops and/or a trade booking system can probably give you an even better idea than I can- they're one or two groups closer.

What is your background in programming? Accounting? Be prepared for questions that revolve around those areas. Also, if it's a product-specific group, it will be a plus if you can discuss the features of the instruments that are getting traded. For instance, if you're joining a CDS operations group, it would be a plus to discuss the contracts' features and how SNAC changes things.

 

All markets related interviews tend to have a technical focus. Obviously, traders and quants have technical interviews. Same with product-specific technology, risk management, and research. I think ops is going to follow the general trend, and, like other groups, focus on their core competencies.

For a non-technology position, after communication skills, the biggest core competencies are accounting and product knowledge.

Operations has a lot of very brilliant people in it, but the bar to get in is often a little lower than trading, quant analytics, or research. All you really have to do is show that your background gives you a good foundation for the job, that you can walk and talk at the same time, you're not unpleasant to work with, and that you have a reasonable degree of competence.

Relax- you don't have to be perfect for the job; the guy interviewing after you is probably going to claim that debits and credits are really the same, and the guy before you probably answered the question about "rectifying a problem at work" by stating the pencils at his last job were all #4s, when he really prefers #2.5s, and how he had numerous conversations with his manager, coworkers, HR staff, and ultimately his MD about rectifying the problem, but eventually had to settle for #2s. That's part of the reason he's interviewing here- JPM has #2.5 pencils. He just hopes they also have pink erasers like they do at his current job- that would be a real bummer if they didn't. All you have to do is come off as relatively normal and capable, you'll probably hear the hiring manager breathe a noticeable sigh of relief near the end of the interview after he realizes you know how to aggregate trades without getting TOO particular with your coworkers about how an Excel spreadsheet's numbers need to be formatted, and you'll be in.

 

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