Best BB firms for S&T

If you wanted to work as a researcher or PM at a fundamental fund, you should have done ER. If you wanted to work in PE, you should have done IBD.

If you want to be a trader at a hedge fund and do execution for the PMs and researchers there, just pick any liquid market where the risk per $ invested is high (equities).

If you want to be a researcher or perhaps a PM one day at a hedge fund, your best bet at this point is to go the quant route. And there are some opportunities in S&T, but the banks have largely gotten out of risk taking, so what S&T does these days is different from what a hedge fund does.

I'd look into index strategies or systematic strategies, or maybe a team that does exotics. What is your math background? Taken stats? Time series analysis? Stochal?

for CS-electronic cash equity trading is right up there. Citi-credit trading

Fixed Income is pretty vague...

Just because you can't get a job at a hedge fund, do not try to trump your lame experience at a central bank. Not the same. Graduate schools will know the difference.

BarCap - one of the best S&T franchises on the Street MS - huge in commodities, market leader.

http://www.coalition.com/ext/assets/investment/CoalitionLeagueTables1H1…

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MMs like HLHZ tend to focus on this specialty more. not sure which BBs are best.

1. Lehman
2. JPMorgan
3. Bear Stearns
4. UBS
5. Banc of America Securities
6. Credit Suisse
7. Goldman
8. Merrill
9. Wachovia Securities
10. RBS
11. DB
12. Citigroup
13. Barclay's
14. Morgan Stanley

goldman and morgan are usually regarded as the top

This is somewhat subjective, but probably pretty close. I'm not sure you can draw a huge line between these.

Citi, JPM, Goldman, Lehman, MS, Bear, Merrill.

Like I said, I doubt this is 'exact' but probably close.

Kellogg isn't really a big target school for S&T recruiting (Wharton, Chicago, and Columbia are the primary targets, and then NYU because it's in the City; most other schools are considered "non-targets"). So it will be slightly tougher overall in that you will have to put in more leg work. That said, it's not all that tough. Most S&T associate classes I've seen are primarily Wharton and Chicago, with one or two here and there from HBS, Kellogg, etc. You may have to go visit a lot of trading floors on your own and may have to do some interviews at the firm vs. on campus, but nothing too tough. For instance, at my firm MIT Sloan isn't a target, so a buddy of mine in my associate class had to interview on the trading floor because we don't visit their campus. For S&T the key is networking and getting a number of good contacts at each bank--which includes visiting as many trading floors as possible. Culture fit is a huge deal for getting S&T offers, much more so than in banking or other finance positions. Proving your quant skills is huge. So take any classes you can about derivatives, fixed income securities, macroeconomics, etc. Trading results on your own account is really pretty irrelevant, other than proving that you pay attention to the markets. In S&T these days most of the products you'll be dealing with are impossible for individuals to trade on their own anyway.

Used to be JPM, GS, and MS... JPM sold to Mercuria, MS (physical) to Rosneft, GS still in limbo.

Decent amount of turbulence and uncertainty right now. Ultimately, I would say the old way of thinking is no longer relevant -- just wait it out and see how things shape up.

In London the top three are

GS DB Lehman

The best S&T is:

The one where you can make the most money.

By both revenue and income it goes like this: 1) Goldman, 2) Morgan Stanley, 3) Barclays Capital.

They are the clear leaders, then there is a sizeable gap.

Next, I would probably group together: JPM (on the revenue from Amaranth, but this position may not be sustainable since they just lost 5 people, including the desk head and COO), Merrill, Bear (now that they just novated William's book--without it they would be in the next group down). Deutsche may be in there as well.

Then Citi, CS, Lehman--all small but aggresively trying to build.

The most recent issue of Energy Risk magazine actually listed desk revenues by firms for commodities in February, I believe, but I don't have the issue handy. To give you an idea, though, the GS/MS/Barcap group is running revenues of just shy of $2B to just over $3B. Whereas the smaller shops, like Citi, for instance, were listed on Bloomberg at around $200M.

For commodities structuring Barclays Capital is tops, and has been for quite some time. But the competition is catching up, as a number of other shops are doing quite well in that area.

GS, LB, DB, MS

Nareman want to make love with LediLexa.

.

for credit it is GS, JPM, BOA-ML, DB

MS - who knows, their platform has been ... off lately

No idea about other asset classes

very tricky. also you need to define "best". BNP/SocGen are considered to have the most sophisticated equity derivs franchises, but im fairly sure in terms of comp they arent the best.

If i was in college again, id just try to get into Goldman Sachs. The others seem to fluctuate, the GS name carries a lot of weight and they seem to be constantly at the forefront of anything investment banking related. There might be stronger/weaker desks but tbh as a junior just go to the best bank. Thats my 2c.

GS and Citi are the only ones left that are serious about it...but if you want commodities trading there are better places to have a career IMO

BAML is equities. ML was always an equities shop. BOA also has a HUGE mortgage book, so their MBS desk has quite a bit of market share.

Citi is pretty big in FX and rates. It has a mortgage desk that's big like BAML.

Deutsche, JPM, and BAML have descent EM desks, and I used to do some good business with Goldman in the Asian NDF market.

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Id expand on IP's points, his general idea being that a lot of trading desks on the sell side are not actually fantastic transition points to being a portfolio manager on the buy side. This is obviously a bit of a generalization. For example if you are on a macro desk then you can transition to a global macro HF as these places are often more trader-y as opposed to fundamentally analyzing companies.

However, even past that there are niches (I transitioned from a sell side vol desk to a CB arb HF)

You have to think about skillset and what kind of HF you want to go to. Saying "I want to work at an HF" is largely meaningless. Do you want to be analyzingcompanies or looking at more macro style investing? Etc etc

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I think it is. Do you need me to attribute it?

Hi,

is there any kind of ranking or where can find information about trading volumes in the energy sector?

thanks!

GS,LB,MS,JPM

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

People DO get into good MBA's with central bank experience. You will do fine if your other stuff is competitive.

That pdf that was posted is as good as anything for giving you an idea of who the top guys are. You'll probably want to apply to every one those banks in any case. Since you aren't guaranteed a spot on a particular desk, you're probably better off going with whoever you like best (assuming you have multiple offers).

JPM/Deutsche/Goldman have generally speaking been the top names in rates/fx for a while now.

It is best to look at this on a group/product basis for instance: Best in Credit/Interest rate products/currencies/commodities

CS, JPM.. Search for a topic about CS Fixed Income that was posted by GordonGekkon asking about offers. In the comments in a link to HY rankings.

To transition from lev fin group to trading group shouldn't be to hard, but might take a year or two. I know of people that have gone from Lev Fin to distressed debt trading shops.

None of these guys are "weak" in FX, because combined they handle 80% of all FX volume in the world. (and we're talking 4 trillion daily)

But it makes sense for JPM to downplay their FX presence, (where they trail DB and UBS by significant margins) and advertise their powerhouse derivatives business.

Always play up your strengths.

I want to go into commodity structuring, so I'm looking at sell side. Are all the BBs really so bad? Will their traders ever get as much risk to manage in the next 10 years as they did pre crash?

QR is better than trading for moving to the buyside (although you will be a trader's bitch for a couple years); trading is better than sales- you can at least get into an execution role and then move towards QR with experience or an advanced degree.

You could also be a really strong candidate for an MFE or a Finance PhD.

Are these jobs dying?

are you serious enough to put LB second???hahahahahaha...they're full of arrogance but they do not carry so much substance...they try to stick themselves between the 3 uber-BBs (GS,MS,ML) but I don't think they will make it...

Gotta love that #1 and #3.

Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but would also highlight even those sub-groups seem somewhat too broad to generalize. i.e. showing JPM as not being in top 3 in G10 credit, which includes IG, HY/distressed, and exotics, when in reality they are at or near the top on the HY/distressed side (not familiar with others).

Like someone else said, just apply everywhere, see where you get offers, see how you like the people at each place, then look at these rankings, in that order.

how the fuck are spammers on this board...

Is Citi really on par with MS, JPM?

Let's just say i'm pretty familiar with FX across the board.

Yes, FX desks everywhere (at conservative and aggressive dealers) have a substantial prop book. That's because FX margins are very low and even though volume is often quite high and consistent, it's still asking a lot of someone to scrape every piece of their bonus off 0.5 basis points per trade.

High liquidity in FX makes entering and exiting prop positions very easy so they do encourage it.

stay out of Credit Index Options if you can, the credit business is going through huge changes in terms of regulatory capital and there is usually only 1 trader per bank. Sometimes 2 at the American banks in the US> Exit opportunities are next to none and you can basically go from one bank to the next.. I'd imagine unless you are stellar it would be v difficult to go to a HF from here

Fixed income at UBS has been doing horrible. That's where are their losses came from after all. They have been bringing in some key talent from other banks though. I believe they got the head of credit trading at DB.

Typically MS and Barclays are considered top fixed income shops from what I've heard. Anyone else hear differently?

I'm not a troll. Just a curious undergrad.