johnnyx9 wrote:
I'm hoping there are some people on this board who can answer some questions on my latest career interest.
How hard would it be for someone with absolutely zero experience in asset management to come out of Stern and land a job in the industry?
Any idea what level I would start at?
Any idea of the relative difficulty of landing a spot on buy-side vs. sell-side?
I agree with many of the things that have been posted here. I work as a Portfolio Manager at a hedge fund and from my experience and from other colleagues in the industry at the end what really matters and how you are going to be valued is by one number, that is, the return you can obtain at the end of the day, week, month, in my case, etc. I have seen many Harvard guys who have not been able to obtain positive returns for 2+ years (and therefore were out of business), and I have also seen a guy with a bachelors in Chemistry, and somehow ended in this industry and has gotten impressive performance.
But well, to focus on how to put your foot in the industry I would recommend:
- Study the CFA, which even though it is a lot of material, you will really learn a lot about finance, about its vocabulary, products, valuation models, etc. This will not only show your interest in this sector but will also show that you have some knowledge.
- I would also read on a daily basis the financial press (Wall Street, Bloomberg, Financial Times).
- Get a good idea of how the markets are performing. To start just take a look at the general indices:
- Stock Markets: SP500, Dow Jones, EUROStoxx, Nikkei225
- Bond markets: Treasury bill spreads, Bund spreads (for Europe, specifically germany), MSCI World Gov. Bond index
- Get an idea of how the exchange rates are moving
- Get an idea of how Oil, Gold and commodities are performing.
Also try to understand what moves the markets and in what direction are they moving. For this there are tons of books you can find in Amazon. Also try to get an idea of where the economy is heading and why.
I would also advice you to learn in the real world by investing some of your own money. Although first, I would buy some books about investing basics and then some more advanced books before investing, although not to avoid loosing money, because you will (investing is like learning how to ride a bicycle, you will fall several times before you can ride well), but more to learn why you lost money and why you gained money.
An MBA from a top school of course will help to get into certain Asset Management firms but the opportunities will depend on how the economic cycle is performing....also you have decide in what type of security you would like to specialize (i.e. stocks, bonds, FX, etc.)
Hope it helped