How to begin improving finance knowledge?

Hello WSO monkeys,

I am currently majoring in Finance in my sophomore year at a very large, non-target school. I am very interested in banking and trading, but I can not take any finance classes until next semester. Thus, I came to WSO to seek out advice. I already read Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast and Bloomberg articles (from the iPhone app) each morning in an attempt to stay current on the markets. My goal is to know enough to secure an internships for the summer. In order to do this, what skills do you recommend I work on improving and what literature should I use to learn more? Is there any must read literature on investing or networking you would recommend to an aspiring banker?

I really appreciate any advice you could give to me.

 

It's fine to start getting in touch with people. Since you don't have experience in finance, people won't test you on technical details, it's something you will learn on the job anyways, but people might want to test your aspirations and understanding of where in finance you want to work and why. Obviously, it's good if you have a general knowledge of the type of work you will be doing and key financial concepts, but it's not necessary to know specific details.

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Best Response

There's really no excuse for not having a little bit of financial knowledge. There are so many resources out there. Get in the mode of reading financial news (WSJ, seekingalpha.com, CNBC, bloomsberg, etc) every weekday before the market opens.

Pay attention to the main indexes (SP500, DJIA, NASDAQ, FTSE, etc), currencies (USD, Euro, Yen, etc), and bond yields (esp 2yr & 10yr). Commodities don't hurt either (gold, silver, wheat).

If you go bone dry into an interview only knowing the approximate spot prices of these, you'll be in decent shape.

As far as learning the more tedious stuff such as financial statements and what not.. there are plenty of guides & readings online to help you with that. Reading through WSO forum posts over the years will help as well with miscellaneous information & entertainment.

 

Thanks guys! Yes, I definitely need to start narrowing things down. If I get in touch with someone in, for example, the real estate group, would it be fine if I told him/her I was interested in technology? Obviously, I will aim for as much common ground as possible, but I'll take any contact I can get. In fact, I am in the process of setting up an informational interview with someone at a BB in NY, but I anticipate it to be very casual.

I'll be subscribing to WSJ soon, but I'm still having a hard time finding recent deals. I'm going after the banks in Toronto, and the deals on their sites are from months ago. How do I find anything more recent? Is there a way to specify the office (i.e. Toronto) and group? I've tried Google, Dealbook, and Newsweek, but apparently my search skills are not up to par. I think I'll be getting access to Capital IQ through my school in September, but I want to get to networking now. Any recommendations?

Also, any recommended reading/watching besides WSJ? I currently tune into BNN and CNBC as much as possible, and I'm reading articles about major events in the finance industry (i.e. Enron, subprime mortgages, etc.). Thanks in advance!

 

Honestly you can get by without WSJ. Occasionally I'll pick it up @ work, but you can get the same news online. This is my reading regimen -

SeekingAlpha (news & stock analysis) CNBC radio (earnings reports, current events, etc) Economist (not necessary, but definitely great macro views) Bloomberg radio (better than CNBC for in-depth analysis) Zero-hedge (kind of a bearish site, but I go here for Macro/Currency news) WSO (

 

Typically, I don't bother trying to help anyone who goes to a top school because frankly, you don't need it. However: pick up the book "Monkey Business", join your school finance clubs, talk to your professors, and then get the Breaking Into Wall Street tutorial. Then, hang out on this site and just absorb information and talk to everyone you can until you get a feel for where you'd fit in.

I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. enjoy your time at school. I didn't have that luxury, but take this time to grow and experience new things. In 20 years, you'll thank yourself: there's more to life than career.

Get busy living
 

I'm in your shoes... kinda. I graduated as an Econ major as well, but my school offered a few Finance related courses and I managed to enroll in them. However, none of my jobs were related to finance... AND they were temporary. So I took it upon myself to enroll in some Accounting classes at a local community college hoping that it'll help with my job hunt. Still looking :\

 

umm there is way too much. Read, a lot. Answer any questions you might have about tiny finance issues / concepts. Ask a lot of questions

and stay away from being a book nerd. The earlier you start touching real data and making your own analysis, the better. Don't memorize what the books teach you, just memorize the tools they use to perform analysis.

Prove things to yourself. THe book, even the really good ones, are frequently just wrong for many different reasons...

good start would be financial accounting though...

 
econ:
Get a introductory finance textbook and read free stuff online. I was amazed how much finance I taught myself over 6 months of occasional reading -- it's really not that hard.

Sorry, I just realized you asked for the non-academic parts. I imagine that you really need to be out there getting experience and learning from people who actually do this stuff for a living.

 

I'm an avid reader of Investopedia, it is just hard to grasp when I lack real experience. I can see what a CDS is, but I have never done one, or even heard of one. On the other hand, I have never filled out a tax return, so I have other issues (ie I should just wait).

Thanks.

 

HFF- I think he was referring to Malcolm Gladwell's idea that 10,000 hours of study (not just reading books, but working, etc) in a subject makes you an expert. I'm guessing you can probably get a firm grasp of finance by putting in a couple hundred hours of studying, though.

Also, for non-academic ideas, I'd read Vault Career Guides and any of the vast number of books recommended on WSO (just do a search for books and you will find threads dedicated to people's favorite books on finance).

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

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