To everyone who left BB S&T: Where are you now?
Curious to hear where you guys went after your experience on the trading floor. This would be incredibly helpful for us younger folks in the industry!
Undergrad Major:
Years on Trading Floor:
S&T Desk Role & Position:
Where you are now:
Salary/Comp:
Any Advice?:
Listening
Following
I'll get it started
Undergrad Major: fuh-nance
Years on Trading Floor: summer internship; worked at an equity HF (trader) for a year after college, been at family office coming up on 3 years now.
S&T Desk Role & Position: equity trading (intern)
Where you are now: family office (investor)
Salary/Comp: LCOL city, ~$100-120k all in from work. work 40 hours a week, very flexible and great benefits. company structure allows for trading in PA. ~$250k from that this year, $175k last year.
Any Advice?: look for a good boss and always be learning. prestige and a $10-20k pay difference mean less and less as your career advances.
that is a cool role :)
Damn boss what are you trading in the PA??
mainly macro, this year there was a ridiculous amount of volatility, so tons of trading opportunities.
Why not...
Undergrad Major: Econ
Years on Trading Floor: 3yr, 1 Summer
S&T Desk Role & Position: High Yield/Distressed
Where you are now: Investment Analyst- Private Credit
Salary/Comp: NYC- $150K salary (75% to 150% bonus)
Any Advice?:
1.) Knowledge and networks grow stale very quickly in this business. You must refresh each as frequently as possible.
2.) Survivability (especially in trading) is the name of the game. You show me a guy/gal who hits .300 and plays politics, and I will show you the future head of the desk.
How did you go about making that move to Private Credit? Were you in a desk analyst role at your bank?
Was a desk analyst for the first 9 months or so... Leveraged that experience to move to a junior analyst HY/LL position, then moved to private credit.
Undergrad Major: Yale. Political Science
Years on Trading Floor: Pits-3. Upstairs - 12
S&T Desk Role & Position: Director/MD Commodities Structuring
Where you are now: Split my time bewtween: MD Grid and Infrastructure at public/private consulting firm focused on economic development, COO/Owner utility scale solar developnent company (1200 MW mid stage). Owner: Standard advisory consulting business
Salary/Comp: 350K in middle america plus sizable equity in OZ Fund.
Advice: Money is just a scorecard for big swinging dicks. Take time out for you. Raise a family. Coach Little League. Work for yourself as early as possible. Get a great accountant and lawyer. Its OK to take a nap during the day. Never be beholden to anyone. Save, don't spend; it is better to use your own money, than beg for it.5
Any Advice?:
“Pits” This guy is a fucking vet! Awesome advice
how was the transition from S&T to consulting/being a COO? Was your background useful when compared to more traditional IB?
Harden.
This is going to sound hippie-ish, philosophic horse crap to most on here, but i dont think that far ahead. What i have been able to do very well is SEE the future oppotunity before everyone else.
I saw ET destroying the floor opportunities in the mid 90s. So i got out and took a job structuring derivatives when it was still in its infancy.
Recently, i knew very little about solar, but read the tea leaves again to wait and watch wind energy burn and knew that solar was the way to go.
Being able to combine 2 distinct concepts, OZ Funds and project finance gives (gave?) Me an advantage over others.
Hate traditional consulting. Waste of time and money. However, when i can create pilot programs to change and influence policy, i am all in.
Projects like creating power backup systems for 5g small cells, creating V2G tariffs using real test bed data, shaping hydrogen policy for the next 30 years.. thats just fun.
...and fun is what you should strive for.
Ive been fired for telling my boss to eff off. I have been down to couch cushion money with a wife and kids. Thats pressure. Do i become a drone for the money, or do i live to do what i want?
No exit strategy, no worrying about presige schools, etc.
Last note: you can learn more from the public library / internet these days to do whatever you want.
D.O.U.G
Curious to hear more about the lawyer advice if you're willing!
Sure.
A personal lawyer keeps you out of many ill-thought situations and when you do screw it up, he will be there to clean-up / minimize the mess. I'm not talking about a yellow pages lawyer either. It will most likely be someone in your social circle, who you throw business too occasionally. Other times, it is a high-powered corporate / criminal attorney who you know for 30 years. Other time, it will be a friend.
My "personal" attorney is my age, known him for 30 years, tried a case in front of the Supremes. Most brilliant mind, I know. He told me exactly what to say in a given situation and has struck the fear of God in others.
Example: You do not need to be accused of rape, brought down to the station at 3am in the morning, after a no-knock warrant and not know what to do or who to call.
His advice? When uncertain say ONLY the following words: "Am I being charged? Yes? I want my lawyer" "Am I being charged? No? Have a great evening". Not even a hello to the police. Coffee? You don't need it (fingerprints and DNA). etc,.
That's why you need a good lawyer.
He is also by business lawyer, reviewing docs, etc. He won't make a mess of the proceedings by over reaching and he won't overbill.
Delete
I'll chip in to provide a bit of variety since most people are still involved in finance one way or another.
Worked for 4-5 years in industry as trader for exotics, linear as well as options but started to get sick of it. The job started to get stupid and at the end of the day politics seemed to matter more than skill.
Spent a year trying to start a tech based business. Amazingly it's still not dead and making money on autopilot but tiny amounts. Now I'm in a cs phd program and dabble in some side projects when I have time. I've started making some pocket change reporting security vulnerabilities on hackerone but more because it makes me feel like a badass than for the money.
Compensation? What compensation?
Don't really have any advice since still trying to figure my own life out. What really drove me to quit though was that the friends that I had who were really successful didn't get there by being someone's bitch. One of them ipo'd their startup this year, his stake was worth a few hundred million and he's 28. It made the whole banking charade seem silly and like a dead-end, especially if your aim is to really accomplish something with your life.
That being said, my wealth doesn't exactly seem like it's headed in the right direction. Also, as seen above, it's possible to transition a trading career into something more lucrative, and that might have been a more easier and potentially more lucrative way, who knows. For me though, I seem to have a natural disdain for people who wear suits, walk around with a stick up their ass, and smooze with other finance types in high-class restaurants, couldn't really see that path working out for me. Definitely don't do what I do if you care about personal appearance more than substance
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