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My guess is interest, less hours, or were not good enough to get into IB.
>not good enough to get into IB.
Nobody should even need to point out how extremely arrogant that statement is.
Completely different roles that take different personalities. I myself find banking boring and prefer the "action" of sales/trading. Much rather sit on a sales or trade desk than in a cube
at the extreme, it boils down to alcoholics vs nerds
...which is which?
The idea anyone would believe S&T is for people not "good enough" for IB is hilarious all things considered.
EXIT OPPS EXIT OPPS EXIT OPPS! lol
My boy Steve did S&T because he couldn't get an IBD offer. Same with yorkieshina
More interested in the work itself/pace of work, more quantitative (for fixed income at least), much more predictable schedule and no weekends. IB sounds miserable to me, the most I would dabble with over the Chinese wall would be ECM or DCM, but even that's pushing it.
my question is for how many more years will S&T still be relevant without having an algo background?
Probably not long. Most S&T entry roles (from what I've seen on company sites, so correct me if I'm wrong) all sort of expect strong quant skills and experience in programming and data structures
Right now I still see a lot of kids get SA/Analyst positions without quantitative/technical backgrounds. They don't get "desirable" desks, usually something like cash equities or execution trading, but they're definitely getting offers.
I agree that a lot of new positions in these fields want programming/math ability though. I remember browsing BlackRock's site and came across a Fixed Income Trading Analyst or something along those lines. It wanted "substantial experience in Java/C/C++", "strong knowledge of Unix/Linux, Perl, scripting, databases" among other things.
When I interviewed at various firms (both BB and prop), one thing I heard over and over is that the "trader" position is going away/evolving. In 5 years it'll be something like "algorithm developer", or "quantitative researcher", etc. I know a lot of assets still rely on phones and brokers, but you're ignorant if you think that'll last. S&T is still around, but do you really want to wait in line for a party that you know will get broken up by the cops 30 minutes in?
People have been saying this for like 10 years. The fact is that a lot of trading on the sell-side (and yes you can still make a lot of money trading on the sell-side) is still very much relationship based. I don't care how good your math skills are, if you're trading a bond that trades once every week or two that isn't going to do you any good. You need to have quantitative skills to understand the models that other people build, but at the end of the day what makes you money is understanding your market. And you don't come to understand the market without being able to interact with people. I work on a product that is considered to be very technical, and yes everyone is quantitative enough to understand the mathematics that goes into valuing the product. But we have people that were english or history majors that often do better than the more technical majors. As a trader you aren't the one doing the programming, you're the one who's supposed to know the market and take the risk.
If you're on the buyside that is COMPLETELY different. I imagine it is becoming heavily quant focused there. And then certain desks within S&T may require some programming (equity exotics, rates exotics, FX options, etc). The most I've ever needed was VBA.
The immediacy and measurability of results. Not to mention the competition. Some of us love slugging it out on a day to day basis.
Can anyone comment on the ECM/DCM businesses? What kind of work can an analyst expect to do and why is this not considered "investment banking". I know some banks have ECM/DCM on the trading floor, but its not like its S&T?
Smarter people in S&T.
IB and S&T are like apples and oranges. Both are fruit and good in their own right. Some people like apples others like oranges. Talk to people in both areas of finance and make a decision that fits best with your goals, strengths, weaknesses and your personality. The 'competition' between IB and S&T will never end, but at the end of the day you have to decide what is best for you.
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