They are people that sell/talk to clients, but also execute trades. Think Bud Fox in Wall Street. He pitches his take on where he thinks the market is going and executes trades for clients when they want to trade. Some clients will really use their advice, some clients do their own research and have him just execute their trades. Although I can't say for certain, sales traders tend to handle smaller clients for the bank. The clients still might trade millions in a day, but they are not George Soros or a really large HF.

"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
 

Just found this link, it helped me understand http://news.campus.efinancialcareers.com/SECTOR_PROFILE_ITEM/newsItemId…

But I'm still wondering: 1. Was Bud Fox a pure salesman or a sales trader 2. Seems odd to cold call random people to pitch unsolicited investment advice....how is it not weird? 3. Can you really trust the advice when the bank's incentive is close the sale regardless of actual faith in the security? 4. Are these sales of the banks products and/or just any old public security?

 
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"Equity sales (also known as research sales): Primary responsibility is to pitch equity research reports and notes to clients. As analyst, that is all you will be doing. When you move up to associate and beyond, you will be able to interject your opinion to a certain extent. This job is essentially all about relationships. If you are not the type of person who has a ton of friends and can walk into a room and immediately strike up a conversation with anyone, you are not going to do well in equity sales. Exit opps: investor relations at a company that you have covered or at a buyside firm

Equity sales trader: A trader/pm on the buyside gives you buy and sell orders. You then tell the sellside trader on your floor the order and the way that the clients wants it traded (VWAP, TWAP, or worked). It is then your job to stay on the trader's ass to ensure that the trader is trading it properly. You also discuss the reasons for the daily movements in specific stocks in contrast to equity salesmen who are more concerned with longer term catalysts. The job also requires social adeptness and you will be taking out clients at least twice a week. "

from here

//www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/difference-bt-sales-and-sales-trading

 

I was under the impression that a sales trader was an ambiguous term for a person working in the institutional sales dept:

Sales: The sales force hit the phones to sell the research to buy side accounts--they are the conduit between the research product (the research analysts) and the buy side (the hedge funds, mutual funds and other money managers). If they can answer all of the questions and sell the product, then great. If not, they may try to get the analyst on the line with the buy side shop's pm/analyst to give a more in depth thesis and answer detail specific questions about the idea.

Trading: When the sales guy sells a client on an idea, then the traders executes the trade and swaps the shares for the $ + a 3-5cent commission from the buy side firm. On top of this, market makers provide liquidity for companies under research coverage, plus cover other companies to profit.

 
adehbone:
Bud fox was a broker, brokers can suggest asset allocation as well.

Your right Bud Fox was a broker, but I think sales traders have a very similar job. I knew some guys who worked in Citigroup's futures desk and they called themselves sales traders. They talked with clients all the time and would execute trades.

"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
 

It's a sales job. Pedigree means basically nothing. I'd say over 90%+ of the Sales Traders I met didn't go to a target - they graduated from a Fordham or a St. John's and built their book from scratch. One of the best Sales Traders I know went to a CUNY.

I will say that most of the Sales Traders I've met deal with vanilla equities, so not much there in terms of required brainpower.

 

Bud Fox was a retail broker (like a financial advisor)

in institutional equity sales there are two roles: Salespeople and Sales-traders. salespeople pitch ideas to portfolio managers and analysts at buy side firms. The PM will then get his analysts to take a look at the stock. When the portfolio manager is ready to buy the stock he will have his internal trader call the firms sales-trader who will act as a liaison between him and the banks trader. In addition sales-traders also proactively call buy-side traders and try to get trades to go through their desk. So, salespeople are selling/pitching equity ideas (from research, etc) and sales-traders are selling/pitching execution services.

So the order looks like this:

  1. sales person pitches idea to PM or buy-side analyst
  2. PM takes time to look it over or have his internal analysts look it over
  3. (if he likes idea) PM tells his internal trader to call your bank to place the order
  4. buy side trader calls sales-trader
  5. sales-trader acts as liaison and gives quotes/info between buy-side trader and sell-side trader
  6. order executed
 

Sales is just what it sounds like. Sales.

I wouldn't go so far to say there is no pedigre in sales. Plenty of people from top schools go for BB S&T roles. Equity sales is a tough racket right now since you are really at the mercy of your firms research quality and capability. Every person whom I have spoken with has told me fixed income is the best place to focus on, specifically structured products. That is where you can add the most value.

It is absolutely a job for an outgoing individual. I am extremely interested in institutional sales myself and one of the nicest things I think is that it is probably one of the last meritocracy left on the street. If you bust ass and present yourself well you can break in from a variety of backgrounds.

 

Just a few additional points coming from a former BB Equity S&T intern - The salestraders tend to handle smaller orders and execute via algos for the most part. One of the traders told me that the salestraders handle 70% of the orders and 30% of the volume. The sector traders are the ones making markets and committing capital on larger orders (Think 100K+ shares) and occasionally taking prop bets.

Salestraders usually have a strong grasp of what names their clients are in, and will update the buyside of any rumors/news/flows coming from the desk. Any upgrades/downgrades/relevant research is also forwarded along to the execution trader on the buyside. As with most parts of this business, this is a relationship-based job that entails nights out with the buyside execution traders.

 

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