Equities in Dallas?
I read the book Liars Poker and he gives a brief description about "Equities in Dallas". Would a job in equities still be looked down upon today?
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Pro tip: don't use liars poker as anything but pure entertainment.
a good paying and stable job today is nothing to look down on
This
still true today, even more true.
There are some good ER jobs at hedge funds in Dallas. If I recall, the book was talking about equity sales, not equity research, which are two totally different things.
As an above poster said, the quote refers to Equities sales, not ER. If all you want to know is about the prestige, then no, equity research in Dallas isn't as "prestigious" in the finance community as, say Goldman TMT. BUT WHO GIVES A FUCK. If you want to do ER, doing it in Dallas at a BB is a damn good place to do it. Guess what else? Everybody else that works there don't give a fuck (well, some probably do) and the first year analysts in NYC aren't going to take time off to leave their cubicles, fly down in their private jets, and point and laugh at you in your cubicle.
NOBODY GIVES A FUCK. If you like it, do it. If you don't, don't. If you want the exit ops, then prestige within a SPECIFIC finance community (whether its hedge funds, banking, trading, etc) has some pull. For example, if you want to go to KKR, you won't get there from ER in Dallas. Have an idea of where you want to go, figure out what you need/are willing to do to get there, and then do it. If it's "equities in Dallas", have at it. If it's an FA rotational program at MSSB, do it. If it's GS TMT, do it. Just do what you want to do, or what you need to do to get where you want to be.
This. And also keep in mind that if you have any entrepreneurial aspirations, Equities in Dallas may not be such a horrible place to start. A good job and a dirt cheap cost of living presents an excellent opportunity to save and invest, what can eventually become a significant amount of seed capital.
Amazing responses, I expected nothing less. Thanks guys!
Open for Questions - Equities in Dallas (Originally Posted: 06/19/2013)
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I figured I would start a thread where I just told my life story in finance and prospective monkeys and other curious lurkers could ask me questions involving my diverse experiences. Maybe it will be helpful to someone trying to make a tough decision. I currently work for an Institutional Research firm where I am Head of Institutional Sales. While I don't live in Dallas, some people do consider what I do to be the armpit of non-retail finance. My background in pretty diverse and if you are curious why I chose to do one thing... I simply chose to do what appeared to be the best option available to me at the time: I attended a top 25 non-target (regional target?) university and majored economics and I took a couple accounting classes. My grades were very so-so. My first internship was at a $700 AUM fundamental value asset manager/hedge fund. They were fiercely independent (in research), long only and had 20 year annualized return of 17% at the time. I spent most my time learning about the Benjamin Graham investment philosophy and learning the very VERY basics of modeling. I could have never worked at this place because they only took on ~5 new positions a year and I would have died of boredom. I can't sit in a room thinking about stocks and doing original research for two months straight without pulling the trigger. My next internship was with an NYSE Floor Broker. I was an "Assistant Clerk" which basically involved being everyone's lunch bitch. The most exciting experience from this was routing trades for clients. I was green enough, where I was impressed enough entering in 3,000,000 share order of BRCM. I also helped them with marketing to new clients (hedge funds). I could have never worked there because I hate standing on my feet for 7 hours straight and everyone felt like a dinosaur. Turn on CNBC today you can see the NYSE is a ghost town. Then it was more full but everyone could see the future so moral was shitty. Also, I wouldn't want to work in Manhattan in a job where you were considered to be doing really well at age 45 pulling in $200k a year. I have to say that I met some of the most interesting people I have known in my life during the job. My third internship and my only experience with "high" finance was as a Fixed Income Summer Analyst at Bear Stearns. The year I was there Bear Stearns was named the "Best Investment Bank" to work for on Wall Street. I was lucky enough to land on the CMO Structure Desk in Financial Analytics and Structured Transactions (FAST). It was considered the best place to be in the entire bank because 1) Fixed Income was where the bank made all its money 2) MD at my desk was in charge of all the FAST interns (+100) and gave us the most full time offers 3) CMO Structure was considered the fastest track to becoming a trader -- traders were the highest paid employees at the bank. I probably could have worked there. For what we were were getting paid and compared to my other friends with investment bank internships, working 9-8/9 most days with most weekends free was pretty awesome. I didn't pursue working there because I didn't find rolling mortgage bonds all day to be that interesting. Frankly, it was probably a little over my head at the time. I remember like yesterday, while sitting in one of the lectures, a brave intern asking what would happen if real estate was in a bubble and what would happen if it burst. One of the ARMs guys explained how real estate values wouldn't drop more then 5% and the business would be fine. All of my fellow interns who took full time offers lost their jobs before they finished their contracts and most now work in fields outside of finance. After graduating, the world of finance was in a tail spin, and a friend of mine (~30) who was a self made realestate mogul insisted I go work for him. He had just fired his property manager on his large office building in South Florida. I spent about a half a year building the last 4 stories of the building when he defaulted on his $12m loan and I was out of work again. I won't go too much into this job because it wasn't finance related but I learned some valuable life lessons and I enjoyed going to work in blue jeans and work boots. From here I began flirting with the world of finance again. I applied and got a job with a top tier republican lobbying firm in DC. I joined their Financial Services Group and helped a variety of Mortgage Brokers, Hedge Funds, and Mutual Funds fight FINREG. While I did it all, I specialized in derivatives regulation -- and I know more then I care too about TARP and its offspring. I enjoyed what I would consider the lobbyist lifestyle... no one thinks twice if you aren't in your office for half the day, you can sip a Makers and Coke at 2pm at your desk and no one will say anything, you get paid a lot for what doesn't feel like that much work, ect. Ultimately though I came to the realization that it was my job to screw over the average American. I am a democrat and I started looking elsewhere. And now we arrive at my current job. I interviewed with my company around my graduation, and they were impressed with me but unable to hire me because of the financial environment. I sent them an email asking if they were hiring and they were and less then a month later I was moving several thousand miles away to take a position in Institutional Equity Sales... and some very low ibanking. People like to shit on my job and I understand why. I am a salesmen. I don't live in NYC. I work on commission. I suck at a lot of finance/accounting. It's extremely unlikely I (or anyone with my job) is going to be worth a bazillion dollars ever. I am a salesmen. However, I think there is a lot to like about my job. I don't think most monkeys on here can touch my quality of life. While I make very low 6 figures my money goes so much farther then here then in NYC. Most importantly, I only work 9-10 hours a day. I think the longest day I have ever worked was 13 hours and I have NEVER worked a weekend. We technically are an investment bank, so I do have an opportunity to do things like capital raises and some M&A which I participate directly in. My job, aside from making phone calls and emails to clients is watching the stock market. I feel like if I got fired tomorrow, the whole experience would be worth it because now I am confident I can run a good PA for the rest of my life. I meet pretty cool people. One of the easiest ways for me to make money is to take company management on the road. Because of our research relationships -- we get the CEO's, CFO's and VP IR's of major corporations to go on trips with us to meet with clients. Our clients, who ideally become your friend, are analysts/pm's/cio's and the highest paid people in the world. Talking to them on a daily basis gives you are really interesting perspective and you feel more in touch then 99% of the people who you hear talk on CNBC. If you aren't great at sales (I am so-so) but respected, you can get into an alpha capture program. I got invited to join 2 of the most prestigious about 9 months in. Basically, rather the calling up and telling someone to buy or short a stock you simply run a portfolio and they send you a check each month. Both of mine have been good for around $5000-20,000 a month each and I have yet to be in the top 7% of portfolio managers. Also, it is possible to make a pretty large non NYC income. Given the market is completely different but my small firm made almost $7 million in 2007. Finally, while I acknowledge I don't think contributing much to society, I am not causing any harm. Well I didn't really mean to write a book but I just kept writing, and now I am bored so I am stopping. There is a lot more I could have said above so if something isn't clear or you have a question -- just ask. Ill log back on Tuesday. Cheers.
Awesome post thanks!
Can you talk a little bit about how you got that lobbying job? and what you were doing? It sounds interesting
Hey. Thanks for taking the time to read the post. I got the lobbying job by applying. I have a decent bit of experience working on campaigns and I spent the summer before college interning for a politician. The Financial Services group at my firm was the weakest division and when I started talking to the IR woman interviewing me about all the financial products I understood (and she looked at me like I was speaking chinese) I knew I was money. So the firm was considered one of the top white shoe lobbying firms in DC. I don't want to give the name because it would connect too many dots on linkedin. We represented a variety of interests from Fortune 100 companies to countries to non profits. One client I had was a multi billion dollar hedge fund with a large derivative position. I would keep them updated on legislative developments as well as trying to shape legislation for their benefit ex. blurring the definition of an end-user ect. The Firm really did everything from advising labor unions how best to apply political pressure to cabinet members facing an important decision, to helping clients identify eligibility for federal funding, to advising sovereign wealth funds on politically sensitive investments in the US. Ignoring the 4 partners, employees made between 60-500k a year based upon their perceived value and the size of their accounts. The firm made almost $20m one year.
interdasting
Hey thanks for responding -- I think it matters what you are selling and where you are selling. 1) As an institutional equity salesperson, I am a stock broker for hedge funds. What I am selling is extremely liquid and being sold by any number of much cheaper options. Explained otherwise, people don't have to trade through me at .03 or .05 or .10 a share. The only reason people give me money is if a) they like me and/or b) they think I am value add to their performance. I am not 100% positive but I imagine I could make more as an institutional sales person selling large illiquid mortgage derivatives. The second point addresses where I work. I work for a small institutional research b/d. I don't have 40 analysts and 300 names under coverage that you might find at a bigger bank. Hedge funds can only justify paying me so much because they can only get so much research from me. That wasn't a great answer because I am not really sure which posts you are referring to. It would be within the range of possibility that I could make 7 figures at my current job but I think that's very unlikely -- because I'm not a world class salesman.
As far as it being meritocratic, absolutely. I haven't been doing this for very long. Make almost as much as people working just as long at GS IB. And I work less then half the hours. Lot of people would say that sounds very compelling. (Side Note: I interviewed to work under a Financial Advisor at MSSB in DC named Marvin McIntyre (google if you want). He made like $7 million last year. The potential in financial advisory is huge if you are 1/bazillion. I know a whole lot more financial advisors making 30-50k a year. In almost any meritocracy you can find 1 or two people making it rain).
The S&T you are talking about is sales and trading in Fixed Income not in Equities.. In FI institutional you can make quite a lot.
What I mean by quite a lot is if you have 5 good accounts you can pull in anywhere from 50 to 100k a month as a salesman. Now if you work at a regional broker dealer the payout is usually around 45 to 50% of that amount. If you work at a large Ibank you get a % of what you gross per year as bonus.
It's always been interesting to me to see what distinguishes institutional equity folks from each other — and to see why they want to bother paying the extra cost. Do you feel that funds will continue to be willing to pay the premium for your services for the foreseeable future? How about 20 or 30 years down the road? What sort of innovation do you see in your industry?
Thanks!
I guess you would say what distinguishes our firm 1) our relationship with management. everyone tries to say this but it's only true for a few firms. Our CEO and to a lesser extent the rest of us actually hang out with management of a lot of the companies we cover socially 2) my firm has been around for almost 20 years, my ceo has been around for 30 and is well known in some circles. the "name" is very important because firms pop up and disappear every day 3) the quality of our analysts. some people would swap 2 & 3
What distinguishes a successful salesmen is are you likeable? and are you sharp? can you fool people smarter then you into believing you are smarter then them? Everything else falls behind.
I think we already see that funds won't pay what they used to (weak volume right now isnt helping). I imagine that trend will continue to a lesser extent. There are quite a few studies that have looked into the value of buy/sell/hold ratings and their questionable benefit. I think PM's will always value analysts expertise on a conversational basis. Obviously the crackdown on special networks helps my business but at the same time I see a lot of hedge funds relying more on internal research. Hedge funds continue to pay for access to management for the conceivable future. As long as portfolio managers continue to think they can beat the market by picking stocks, there will be a decent number of them willing to pay someone else to do the dart throwing for them.
oh your grammar and your spelling ....
LOL you mean $700 MM right
Bravo
+1
Great post, I'm curious about comp ; what do 50th, 75th, top 10% percentile earners make as salesman? Also, have you ever compared the career to PE Business Development - any thought?
Never thought about how my job compares to PE Business Development but I would be interested if someone else has.
Unfortunately no. I just mean I don't really think people have a clue how to invest/trade... even people that have been pretty active in the markets in their etrade account. I feel confident now in my ability to crank out steady returns which should benefit me the rest of my life. no haha. Im not a salestrader actually. Just sales. I'd be curious to know if your firm has completely different values. Share. You're welcome. Thanks for reading. Thanks. The lobbying business is pretty difficult to jump into and make a big splash. The real thing they are looking for is connections so the best way -- unfortunately -- is be do a stint working for the government. Retired politicians, legislative directors, senior staff members on committees, senior staff members to cabinet secretaries, campaign finance chairs ect ect ect are going to be the people that really have the upper hand. If you really want to start from lobbying and work your way up, I recommend that you work on your cocktail party skills and have an expertise in an industry -- though not necessary. It's like banking, if you want to be a revenue generator -- you need to be likeable and have an expertise, if you want to work in a support capacity (at least for the time being) you primarily just need to work hard. The most valuable degree to break into lobbying would be a JD. The lobbying world is great. The more the government tries to change things (reform) the more businesses get scared and want to fight it and have a say in how tomorrow will look.Very cool. When you say you could run a solid PA, do you mean you could actually live off yours?
Are you the same thedude from xtremesystems? I remember posting there when I was looking to build a pc
Seems like the OP here certainly fits the mold of a typical salestrader. Being in the same position myself its crazy to see how different at different shops have totally different attitudes/values. Overall would say this is how the average salestrader lives. There is of course always another story to be told.
Good Post, thank you
Great post, thanks for explaining your career steps in detailed.
I was also interested reading about the lobbying position you had. I was thinking of going into lobbying if M&A doesn't work out. I know the two are quite different. Do you have any tips on entering the lobbying world? What qualifications are needed (i'm studying finance now), what do firms look for? And last, how is the lobbying world?
Thanks!
Great post and a great insight into a role that I particularly didn't like in my experience. I can safely say its not a job for me although I do have some questions.
I have very rarely come across an equity salesperson who liked what they did. That being said, those who did, loved it and did very well.
What do you offer your clients that the bigger brokerage houses/IBs cant? I am guessing its probably the more personal coverage or maybe not lol? View would be much appreciated.
I remember the FICC guys used to bash the equity salespeople day in and day out and commented on the lack of any real exit ops. In reality, for someone who either finds themselves out of work or is looking to change direction a little, what can they realistically look to get into?
Great post.
I had never heard of Alpha Capture until I read your post, how exactly does it work?
You mentioned having to be invited, so I'm guessing you need some sort of track record; what's more important to get invited, having a strong resume or having actually executed successful trades on your own?
How do the payouts work? Can you provided names of a few of these programs?
Thanks
Fantastic post!!! Made my day today when i signed on to WSO.
You mention the comp model for Sales assuming the Salesman worked on commission. What about pay for salesmen who work for mid-market/large banks?
Also, I sent you a PM.
Great post! Thanks.
Ok so if you are just sales when you get orders are you relaying them to the traders? I cant imagine the traders at a shop like that stay very busy at all as you definitely dont have monster flow. i am trying to figure out what shop you are with but im pretty stumped.
As much as I would love to post more I just am not comfortable and I have probably already said too much. I am sure we have some mutual clients as well which makes thing interesting.
Have you had any luck with Vanilla asset managers at places with say 500mm-2bln AUM?
Our sales traders are not very busy... sigh... Our revenue is now 2 to 1, checks to trades. Not much luck with the vanilla asset managers outside our local ones. Ill send anyone research if they ask me to but I only really call them when I have company management in town. I have local guys with 30mm AUM as paying clients. I accept all payments... no matter how small.
What do you think is your next step?
Good Stuff.
Will read your book as long as it goes into details and motivates one.
Thank you
Do you get paid a base salary or do you get paid purely on a commission basis ?
Thank you
What do you read in the morning before your day gets started? Financial Times?
You said you sometimes get to work on capital raising and M&A. Could you elaborate more on this side of your job and how a typical day works as it relates to this, especially for M&A?
Hey thedude,
What does an Equity Salesman do the first two years at a bank? I'm assuming that the first two years you don't have direct client responsibility.
Hi thedude,
Why do you want to work in equities when in fixed income, you could as some other poster mentioned, make around 600K to 1.2 million roughly per year in fixed income sales? I can understand your liking equities, but that kind of money sounds too good to turn down. Why not fixed income?
While I respect your post, it's worth pointing out that Inst Sales (IS) people are parasites typically with low IQ. 98% of IS people cut and paste analyst work and forward it on to clients without any knowledge of the analysis to achieve such conclusions. They do not understand the business they are covering and they are exactly what the OP said, they are Salesmen just like a car salesmen or pharma rep; and I mean that literally. They are usually SEC/Div1 school types who never studied anything of value in college. Once they cant answer the basic client questions, they start scrambling for analyst to make a call or IM. Sales people have no real skill other than asking "whats the read thru for company x?" and "can you read thru my notes from the road to see if they make sense?"
Yes you have good hours because you are not a real professional and you only copy the work of others; you only work off the back of other actual wall street professionals.
Wow, is that really necessary?
good read
what year did you graduate?
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