What are /r/FinancialCareers' favorite Products & Services?

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Mostly basic Python and SQL

making an interactive dashboard website showcasing some statistics (maybe covid in your area) will help get an interview and leetcode.com should help with the interviews

I was gonna suggest this quant interview book https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Quantitative-Finance-Interviews/dp/1438236662, but you seem to be talking about fairly basic high school math not quant-level math.

Instead I would suggest using some of the GMAT math study materials, or doing the CFA level 1 (for more finance oriented time-value-based and basic statistical and probability math with a bunch of accounting analysis stuff thrown in). Both are more than sufficient and maybe even overkill for the kinds of problems you're talking about. Khan Academy as someone else mentioned is fine too, though not as focused on business applications.

You should take a look at introductory accounting before attempting finance. Accounting is the underpinning to finance and one must know the in's and out's of accounting before trying to understand finance.

Start Here

You'll hear this a thousand times but read A Random Walk Down Wall Street. It has a good overview of America's market history, specifically the last decade. Make sure you buy a revised version.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393352242/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Some people may suggest Intelligent Investor and Securities Analysis but I found them very dated.

Also here is the r/personalfinance reading list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/readinglist

Err... I don't think anyone would expect a math undergrad student to know the answers to any of these questions. To answer them you pursue relevant education: MBA, MFin, CFA, CFP, or live and breath the stuff as an amateur. One could start with Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits or Little Book of Common Sense Investing or The Little Book That Beats the Market or The Little Book of Value Investing or any other of tens of thousands of other half-decent books based on accepted principles of finance.

Do you want to be in portfolio management, risk, compliance, trading, research, etc.??

Anyways, if you are good at math an engineering degree, letting your employers know you're interested in finance and planning on getting your CFA, will probably get you better opportunities in my honest opinion.

I mean, I'm going the finance route and the content has certainly increased my interest, etc. but because I come from a non-target, even though I have a relatively high GPA my job prospects scare me.

Just my two cents though, obviously listen to yourself before some dude on the internet. For books to read:

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

The Intelligent Investor

Security Analysis

The Black Swan

Also --- peer reviewed research papers, Warren buffet letters, etc.

Good luck dude, hope it works out for you.

First off, Go Knights! UCF finance grad here, sure don't miss that testing lab.

Next, I agree with /u/southeastwest, those are great reads. I'd also throw in A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Maikel as another informative read. Charge On!

I used Treehouse for most of my learning (https://teamtreehouse.com). It’s not free, but it’s worth it. The lowest tier membership is $25 a month, and it’ll give you access to a huge amount of content.

If you’re really ambitious, they have a Python “Techdegree” program that will give you projects, access to a Slack channel, and instructor office hours. But try the basic membership before you commit to this more expensive track.

But there are lots of free sources too like the ones you mentioned. Check out Corey Schafer’s channel on YouTube for some great tutorials.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU

Active management is necessary for pricing differences to be identified/corrected and therefore enhance the efficiency of the markets. While the current tide of capital flowing to passive investment products will certainly cause many asset managers to close their doors, the managers that have performed well historically will remain open and I only see their opportunities to generate greater returns increasing as money flows into passive index funds and their ability to generate higher alpha is enhanced. In short, it may become tougher to find a job in AM in the near future as more managers close their shops, but I do not see the industry going away. The flow of capital will go in cycles.

As for your statement that hedge funds frequently under-perform the market, by which I assume you mean the S&P 500, I will just say that many funds set up by HF are not designed to beat the S&P 500 or use the S&P 500 as a benchmark for their performance. I will stop short of saying anything else about HF's as I know less about that industry.

If you are interested in the AM/HF industry, I encourage you to read The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and I also suggest you look into the CFA Program.

Since it's a financial analyst position at an investment ban and not a first year analyst IBD analyst position, don't worry about IBD type of questions like others might be referencing (DCF, etc).

Best way to stand out in my opinion. Have a solid elevator pitch / tell me about yourself. Keep it to two minutes. Make sure you're "personable." The reason they hire you is because you're easy to work with and have a desire to do a good job.

Express that you want to learn and develop in the position, you can add value technically and you learn easily. A lot of people talk about how they were leaders, etc. Personally, I couldn't care about that for junior hires. Every 21 year old has some leadership thing they can talk about. Tell me about something interesting you did that was very technical, I care most that you are analytical.

Some rookie interview mistakes:

1. Don't go on too long with answers. Answer the question without a giving a lecture.

2. Show you did research on the role and company, make it clear you did.

3. If someone gets side tracked on a topic (i.e. You played sports, they played the same) let the conversation go that way for a bit but don't let it take up the whole conversation. Fit is 99% and those small connections show you are easy to talk to, but make sure you get across that you're a strong candidate.

4. Don't ask "smart" questions. They usually make people seem like a know it all. Ask open ended questions like "what skills make someone successful in this role" pretty decent list here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-best-interview-questions-ask-130422407.html

1. Do some research on the role and group. Ask questions about it if you need to. "It said on the description it entails x, could you elaborate on that more"

This is what you want: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Private-Equity-Transformation-Investments/dp/1119327970

It goes way beyond financial modeling and data analytics(but does include it), it'll teach you the strategic human thinking you need to make it in PE and VC. Anyone can learn the hard skills, its art of investing is much harder to learn.

Cold e-mail some wealth management shops in your area and see if they need someone to help out around the office (unpaid) for the summer. Keep it brief, tell them about yourself and that you're interested to learn more about finance.

They won't respond to you the first go around. After 3 e-mails (wait a week or so between e-mails) if they haven't responded, then just move on to the next shop.

Some banks have freshman experience days that they'll fly you down to the NY office and you network with senior personnel. Keep your grades high (above 3.5+) and go to them and network like hell. They might even have freshman internship programs.

Finally, join your university's finance/investment club. Hit the ground running on day one and get to know/become friends with the heads of the club. Hopefully if you go to a good school where people are passionate about finance, you'll get some good mentorship along the way.

Book recommendations:

• Liar's Poker (for fun, everyone in finance has read this)

• The Big Short (develop an understanding of the financial crisis)

• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits (fisher)

• You can be a stock market genius (Greenblatt)

• The Most Important Thing (Marks)

• All of Buffett's shareholder letters

Man I'm interested in finance, accounting and all these fields, I study mechanical engineer and unfortunately my university doesn't provide any class in these fields, those are some of the books that I use/used to study by myself...

Foundations of Financial Markets and Institutions - Fabozzi

Principles of Corporate Finance - Brealey

These others are also interesting:

The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in American Business

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Little Book of Common Sense Investing

Stocks for the long run

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

Thinking fast and slow

Fooled by randomness

The Fat Tail

Finance and the Good Society

Irrational Exuberance

The Black Swan

Outside of an internship / job (which it Doesnt hurt to pursue, even if the odds are slim) is that you should read.

J D Schwager wrote a series of books under the title "Market Wizards" which will teach you a lot about how markets work and how traders think. The most recent is "Hedge Fund Market Wizards" as far as I know. Its a great read.

David Einhorn wrote "Fooling some of the people all of the time" which is relatively recent and chronicles his short position against Allied Capital. It's a good, in depth view into how investors think that reads well and very insightful.

Also, as you've probably come across, the Michael Lewis books are great reads (Liars Poker, The Big Short, and Flash Boys off the top of my head) and "Barbarians at the Gates" is a great overview / case study on the LBO and M&A world, albeit, a bit dated.

If you're unable to get an internship, which I myself may not in a similar situation, I'd recommend studying. Take another class at your school. Take online classes such as https://www.coursera.org/course/whartonfinance. ExamFX.com also offers several certification services, for Life/Health, Series 7/6/63 etc. These can all help bolster your resume, as well as of course studying for the CFA if that's what you choose.

I think you're confusing career level and functional title. In financial services, "AVP" is a career level. In industry corporate finance, you will never see a Financial Analyst or Manager with any sort of "president" designation.

Example: Financial Analyst - AVP

You will never see a posting like that outside of financial services, the AVP piece that is.

To downplay some of the other stuff, you can always remove it. There are many times on resumes where the "less is more" mantra is useful.

I would change the wording of your titles to something like this:

• Business Analyst - Trade Management
• Project Manager (keep the senior if really applicable, but ditch AD)
• Analyst - Demographics and Branding
• Operations Analyst - Client Relations

This will set you up to take analyst and senior analyst positions, or maybe a junior manager position in F500. However, I think it will be an uphill battle to jump from that directly into corporate finance. There are a lot of "analyst" roles in between finance orgs and the businesses, great positions, you deal with more financial info, margin improvement initiatives etc. You may need an in-between role like that first. Good luck.

> Should I pursue this type of role and could I use this experience to get into some kind of support role that involves doing real work?

Probably not. Maybe you'll get more responsibilities over time, but you won't be switching into other roles. The office Manager at my fund is still an office manager 12 years later.

Get your degree. There are lots of jobs that require a statistics background and VBA skills, but they will all want you to have a bachelors at least.

I would try Fintech. Take a look at companies like Stripe for example. A bunch of jobs (Analyst, Product, Operations, Finance, etc) could be suited to your skillset. There are a bunch of companies like it out there, and they are much more concerned about your skills, rather than your credentials, when compared to finance jobs.

You need to use the future value of an annuity due equation, there are online calculators to help with this.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/finance/annuity-future-value#how-to-use-our-annuity-calculator

Mergers & Inquisitions has an interview guide, fit, and technical

Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions has been a bible for me on comps, DCFs and LBO models

I don't know how your firm is but from my experience getting interviews at a boutique MM firmS, fit is a big deal since you'll probably be client facing from the get-go.

https://libgen.pw/view.php?id=227709

To everyone asking for a template, here it is, I just modified it to make the font size larger and add my own colours : https://www.overleaf.com/articles/akash-agarwals-cv/nsdwxvbmghvx

First, thank you for your service. This is a great question and I wish I could provide a decent answer.

This is purely speculation, but with so much remote work these days, you might be able to find a company willing to hire you part-time if you are able to commit to a semi consistent schedule. You could also check out Fivver.com or upwork.com for some one off projects. I think it is going to be difficult to reach out through normal HR channels given your situation. It might be beneficial to determine what industry you are interested in and reach out directly. I suspect that you will only be able to find a part-time / intern opportunity with a smaller company, maybe only a start-up. Any company that is more structured is going to have a hard time hiring someone on active duty overseas.

I led a Hiring our Heroes initiative back in 2011 at my last company. I have some additional perspective that I would be happy to give. I can also put you in contact with a good friend of mine who is a veteran. Feel free to PM me.

I started by learning the basics of Python on https://teamtreehouse.com. After you get through that I would learn how to use the data analysis library, Pandas. Search Sentdex on YouTube. He’s got good Python tutorials on a bunch of different topics such as pandas. You’re gonna need this to work with data and backtest strategies. After that I joined Quantopian.com. It’s a crowd source algo trading platform. They have a lecture series going over a lot of advanced topics and it’s all in Python.

I don’t think I would be able to get an algorithmic trading job at a big company or fund. That’s too competitive. I have a BS from a state school. They want elite colleges and master degrees. However, I put together a coding portfolio before graduating with blog posts and github repos. Somebody read those and offered me a job on the spot.

Highly recommend this books as a guide for practitioner research- colleague of mine wrote, currently the top ranked EM strategist on the street in Institutional Investor

Trading Fixed Income and FX in Emerging Markets: A Practitioner's Guide (Wiley Finance) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119598990/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_SCW2FHC5ZEJ6689DVPWF

Honestly reading country research reports might be a more streamline approach. There are some great broader cultural books I'm aware of, and looking forward to this dropping on the 15th - though It's less US centric.

This looks like it might be more up your alley.

I should add you'll find virtually nothing unbiased on the subject.

Without a doubt, read this book. I attribute the success in my life and career to this book. In short, the book is about a mindset shift of serving others to fulfill your goals. It's totally opposite of the typical Corporate bullshit mentality of "I'm your boss, do what I say" approach.

I have taught myself some basic modelling techniques from various sources online But some of my work outside of school has been on value investing, so I have a basic understanding of what to look for in a great company (Common stocks and Uncommon Profits, The Intelligent Investor, and other types of books like that). Would this be the modelling you are referring too?

More Money than God is very nice! It is sort of like "history of hedge funds" book, right? I enjoyed it very much. I have not read Security Analysis (only the intelligent investor, by the same author). Will also add it to my list! The Millionaire Next Door has been on my shelf for a few years, but I haven't read it yet. Time to pick it up! ;) Thanks you!

Common Stocks & Uncommon Profits, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Beating the Street, The Intelligent Investor (heavy read), The Big Short (a good read on the financial crisis a few years back, always a topical question in interviews), Liar's Poker, 24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success (very fun/interesting read, introduction to a lot of the more complex topics you may find in the books above).

• Market Wizards - Jack Schwager
• The Intelligent Investor, mentioned already. Buffet swears by it.

Edit: Sorry I assumed a more S&T/Equity Research role - what area are you interested in?

As far as finance is concerned The Intelligent Investor is one that gets thrown around a lot (it's technical), Liar's Poker is a lot of fun if you want to just read about Wall Street's 'glory days' with all it's glamor.

Or if you're just looking to read I suggest anything James Joyce (minus Finnegan's Wake)!

There's a pretty established Canon on Credit Crisis books and Introductory literature on Investing/Trading. You'll find numerous lists on line , but i'll do my part and give you my favorites categorically. Maybe some other posters can start a comprehensive list?

• Credit Crisis

  • House of Cards - William Cohen
  • The Big Short- Michael Lewis
  • Too Big to Fail - Andrew Ross Sorkin ( just watch the movie)
  • Crash of the Titans - Greg Farrell
  • On the Brink - Hank Paulson

• Event Studies:

  • When Genuis Failed - Lowenstein?
  • Reminisces of a Stock Operator- Lefevre ( Try to buy the annotated version
  • Inside the House of Money- Drobny
  • Hedge Fund Market Wizards - Schwager

• Investing

  • Intelligent Investor- Ben Graham
  • Buffet Essays.

Nice!!! More teasers you may found here [IOS] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/riddles-brain-teasers/id1062623920?mt=8 [Android] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polisapps.brainteasers

VBA and python would be helpful as you settle into the role and are looking for ways to become more efficient but not necessarily help you get in the door if that makes sense.

Like the other poster said, I’d focus a bit on modeling. Not sure how much a “certification” would help but more so to be able to talk intelligently on how the financial statements interact and possible levers to pull when forecasting a company.

If you have time over winter break, definitely recommend reading this book. Gives a good overview of commercial banking and what to expect. https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Into-Banking-Successful-Commercial/dp/150777771X/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=ba464ebe-36d4-479f-be1e-5f2c7639cf32

Hi! Thanks for sharing your feedback. CFI is accredited by the Better Business Bureau® (BBB) - a private, nonprofit organization advancing marketplace trust for over 100 years. To maintain accreditation standards, CFI follows the BBB Standards in accordance with the BBB Standards for Trust.

CFI is also a recognized continuing education provider by the CPA Institutions in Canada and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) in the US for CPE credits. At CFI, we combine all three skill sets — theory, application, and intuition — into a condensed, self-paced program that can be taken anytime, anywhere.

The Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA)® designation is an online global certification program that focuses on practical applications of financial analysis, modeling, valuation, presentations, and more. It covers the entire financial analyst skillset and provides the tools and training necessary to become a world-class financial analyst.

CFI courses give you practical skills, templates, and tools to move up the finance ladder. We pick up where business school leaves off to teach you on-the-job aspects of corporate finance, investment banking, corporate development, FP&A, treasury, accounting, and more.

You can read more about our students' feedback in this link provided. Otherwise, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] and we'd be more than happy to assist you with any inquiries you might have :) - Yohan

It is always worth making an investment in yourself and your career development!

Our FMVA program might help you strengthen your skills and boost your confidence with the job hunt. The program is designed to cover the entire financial analyst skillset and provides the tools and training necessary to deliver financial analysis, modeling, valuation, presentations - all using practical applications in Excel. The program already includes Excel courses, too, including basic through advanced.

There is a proven track record of CFI graduates marking successful transitions into the careers of their dreams and this is based largely on the resources that we make available to our students upon enrolment. You can check out how our programs helped our students' careers here.

If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to our student support team at

Two more things:

1.) You may want to do a functional resume because it's focuses on skills when making a major career pivot.

2.) I love this resume book. It's cheesy as hell and takes some time to go through it, but it's awesome. It's called Resume Magic and see if your library has it before buying it.

https://www.amazon.com/World-Sale-Traders-Barter-Resources/dp/0197651534/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=6C10TTO5CODK&keywords=the+world+for+sale&qid=1663447502&sprefix=the+world+for+sale%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1

Your firm should train you, this is pretty good base to refer to tho although likely a bit detailed before you start getting into things.

Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of any Asset, University Edition (Wiley Finance) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1118130731/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_MF63BNCCYCY2P9TAA0SF

I would also brush up on the valuation-related accounting standards for your GAAP.

There’s a section in The 2-Hour Job Search about networking online with alumni and other relevant groups. It also includes sample email templates that I’ve used successfully.

"Barbarians at the Gate"

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/corporate-kleptocracy-rjr-nabisco.asp

"The Partnership"

https://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Making-Goldman-Sachs/dp/0143116126

There’s actually a book with that title lol. It’s a short read but goes over the job at a good depth. https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Into-Banking-Successful-Commercial/dp/150777771X

Accounting and analysis experience is really valuable if you’re going to be working on the credit side. I’d suggest getting your foot in the door in a Credit Analyst or Portfolio Manger role and learning the fundamentals of risk from a bank perspective. You’ll learn a lot about other positions in the bank as well like treasury or specialty finance groups and if one of those become more appealing, an internal transfer would be easier. You can also decide to go on the sales side of things but you can see what that’s like as you’ll work hand in hand with them as an analyst.

The other poster is right about there not being a set progression like IB. In the junior roles, you’ll typically advance every 18-24 months but you’ll quickly be but up against supervisory roles that don’t come open as often and require a decent amount of experience to be considered. Not to worry though because during that time, you’ll be advancing in your own role (PM1 > PM2 > PM3, etc) with nice little pay bumps each time.

The comp structure is publicly available:

https://www.schwab.com/legal/compensation-advice/us-branch-representatives-compensation

decent but definitely below what you'd expect at an independent RIA. The biggest benefit is Schwab will give you a book of business to develop. Metrics reset every year but you do maintain service pay.

Hard to imagine you make anything less than 250k as a senior on West coast but it also depends on the city. Smaller branches struggle with lead flow, bigger cities or ones with Stock Plan (big tech especially) will make hitting metrics easy

Best culture in the industry by far. People want you to succeed

Hi there! The FMVA® program is open to professionals in various industries and levels of experience. The FMVA® Program covers a critical body of knowledge that is necessary to become a world-class financial analyst. The program teaches you how to build a financial model from bottom to up.

You can read how the FMVA® program helped our students in their careers here: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/corporatefinanceinstitute.com

Hi there! Earning a CFI certificate demonstrates mastery of a broad range of corporate finance, financial modeling, and valuation skills that will set you apart from the competition at any stage in your career.

Most of our students have careers in investment banking, private equity, corporate development, equity research, and FP&A.

You can read how the FMVA® program helped our students in their careers here.

If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to our student support team at [email protected].

While we feel that our education platform is the #1 way to learn the skills necessary to build a successful career in corporate finance, there is always uncertainty in the job market and we completely understand your hesitation.
Fortunately, there is a proven track record of CFI graduates marking successful transitions into the careers of their dreams and this is based largely on the resources that we make available to our students upon enrolment. While we cannot guarantee your employment, we will always strive to give you all the necessary tools to ensure your success

You can read about how our programs helped our students' careers here.

I trade ABS bond at a fund and I used to spend time for modeling at sell at buy side as well. I would say that fresh out of school there is big potential there. It is true, structured products require some numbers crunching, but it is nothing similar to rocket scientist. One book I would mention is the step by step guide: https://www.amazon.com/Modeling-Structured-Finance-Flows-Microsoft-Excel/dp/0470042907. that definitely is enough to get you equipped with the numbers technique. also Fabozzi's fixed income book (just 2-3 chapters) can get you some solid background for the whole sector.

​

Dont think you need to worry about fancy models at this moment; the hiring manager wont expect you know those. just simple amortization model, prepay, default concept, and asset/liability, and leverage solid understanding. Those should be enough.

​

Good luck

If you're looking for a more laid back finance read, I recently just published one, The Pitchbook: A Banking Analyst's Tale of Markets, Millions, and Mayhem. The amazon link has a preview of the first few chapters if you want to check it out:

https://www.amazon.com/Pitchbook-Banking-Analysts-Markets-Millions-ebook/dp/B097M5G83K

For a $500mm client? You bet. That client’s situation is intricate, complex, and unique. The scope of their needs are wider, too.

But I think services like this (https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investment_advice/intelligent_advisory) will do one of two things: gobble up smaller accounts ($3mm-$5mm) that would have gone to private banks, or put enormous fee pressure on private banks so that the economics of the business will be less attractive. Therefore, private bankers make less money.

Not to mention the new, efficient, cheap services popping up left and right (Acorns, Betterment, etc.)

By the way, I think these changes are largely good for customers.

Can you tell a little more about your "worked with a headhunter" process? I was contacted by one of their headhunters for similar 'unknown' but tech position and we scheduled a call. However, after sending my resume, never heard back from him. Probably, there was something really off on my resume.

Do you need a lot of networking even for tech positions? It seems much easier to get an interview with big tech rather than HFs.

Since I have already done some research regarding their quart positions, I can share my thoughts. Basically, the questions are very similar (in terms of difficulty and theoretical depth) to big tech interview questions (FAANG), with the only exception that (generally speaking) they emphasize on your C++ skills (while big tech are language agnostic). Here's some phone interview experience from Leetcode:

https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question?currentPage=1&orderBy=hot&query=&tag=citadel

If it comes from hackerrank, just go through these questions https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/mathematics . They seemed to approach it in a centralized way now so I think the questions will be of the same standard globally. Typically there will be a lot of conditional probability though.

We are also provides best podcast for finance relented such as Tax and CA, CS: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/saginfotech/episodes/2019-08-07T00_47_20-07_00

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Tableau there are plenty. I am pursuing this one currently

https://www.tableau.com/learn/certification/desktop-specialist

SQL I currently do not have one as I use it in my day-to-day at work, I learned by fucking up, googling, and fixing my fuck up. Some of my coworkers use Sololearn.

I urge you to not use certificates as a crutch for networking. Networking is 100x more powerful than something that anyone who graduated college can get in a few hours of study. When you reach out to people, be honest, show some enthusiasm, and be able to speak coherently and intelligently regarding their companies.

Besides the tools you mentioned above (zoom/slack), our company also uses work management software.

We use it to keep track of our tasks and deadlines, and also assign tasks to individuals. Currently using a free software called Quire, which is quite agile. It provides features such as the kanban board, offline syncing, easy collaboration, priorities, reminders...etc.

Hope this helps!

Book recommendation below. Meant to introduce capital markets to an audience of scientific professionals.

The Complete Guide to Capital Markets for Quantitative Professionals (McGraw-Hill Library of Investment and Finance) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005C3WUVC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_DZVQXZVJRKG80KR857JX

If you want to prep for technicals, Rosenbaum and Pearl is a must have. Damodaran's Investment Valuation is also a great resource if you're interested in learning technicals from a more academic/theoretical perspective.

Why don't you think that you can do that right after you graduate?

​

If you take the right steps, you definitely can. I worked in the NBA for a few years, starting as an entry level employee on the business side. It's definitely an achievable goal that probably comes down to networking more than anything else. Almost every job in sports goes to someone who has had a conversation with someone on the "inside". In most cases, it's not a deep relationship, just someone who they connected with on Linkedin.

​

I have a buddy who recently wrote a short book about finding a job in sports after the pandemic. You can check it out here if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/Post-Pandemic-Guide-Finding-Job-Sports/dp/B096LMV4KB

You're in great shape! As a math PhD, you have all the skills you need to succeed in quant finance interviews. You just need to practice the specific quant finance interview questions.

You can do that through the "green book" for quant finance. You can also check us out at www.hireglyph.com -- we're a collaborative interview preparation platform for quant finance founded by Harvard and Berkeley students, and you can join our mailing list to get quant finance interview tips right to your mailbox!

I bought these off of Amazon for like $16. I work and part-time grad student so I stare at a computer pretty much all day and was getting bad headaches. Definitely a lot cheaper than a prescribed pair but they do the trick for me.

SIE Exam Prep 2021 and 2022: SIE Study Guide with Practice Test Questions for the FINRA Securities Industry Essentials Exam [4th Edition Book] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1628452420/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_3WXW19W27YJZGKGSJ65E?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

This book helped me

Np. If you land the job I highly recommend “Introduction to Structured Finance” by Fabozzi.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Structured-Finance-Frank-Fabozzi/dp/0470045353/ref=nodl_

It’s pretty dry but very informative.

Standard trading interview difficulty; probably similar/bit harder than questions in here:

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Quantitative-Finance-Interviews/dp/1438236662

I hear ya. Try to use this as a learning experience of what NOT to do when you become a manager. As I look back on my Corporate career, I am thankful I had so many turd eating managers, because they showed me how I didn't want to be. When I managed people it was "easy" in a sense because I had so many teachers showing me the wrong way to lead.

The one thing that helped me become a better worker and man was reading The Servant Leader. At my last job, my boss turned our leadership team onto this book and we read it together. We transformed our culture from being a loser (financially and mentally) to one of the best locations in our company. If you're serious about becoming a better person, read that book and put the principles to work. It's life changing.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Practices-Equity-Research-Analysts/dp/0071736387/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2OXKHNHFF6OOQ&keywords=best+practices+for+equity+research+analysis+james+valentine&qid=1560916488&s=gateway&sprefix=best+practices+for+eq%...

I've found this book helpful for derivatives.. it's very much a textbook though: https://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives-10th/dp/013447208X

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no problem. By the way here's a book I found really helpful for review: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Quantitative-Finance-Interviews/dp/1438236662/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1514852482&sr=8-2&keywords=quant+finance. Good luck!

When I started in VBA, I looked at a lot of books, and found John Walkenbach's "Power Programming" book to be the very best f(or me, at least.) I found it to be concise, thorough, and practical. Many things I learned in that book, I used for the next 10 years and to this day.

Here's a link to a recent version... but note that the version I used was much older... like 10 years older...

https://www.amazon.com/Excel-Power-Programming-Spreadsheets-Bookshelf-ebook/dp/B01BA0TD9M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1516509313&sr=8-3&keywords=walkenbach

It was about making crazy amounts of money in a short time period. As with most things I decided to come up with a plan to get rich quick.

I started with some reading. Felt like a moron about 3 pages into "The Intelligent Investor". For some reason I never lost the greed diven motivation despite realising how boring financial theory really was.

Now I'm studying for my CFA and have not even started uni. Who said greed is bad.

I appreciate the response! I recognize that hedge funds are generally L/S--I'll have to look further into how effective that's been over recent downturns. I've read The Intelligent Investor, but I'll definitely look into Security Analysis!

I'm also looking to take the CFA level 1. I figure if I'm studying all of this, I might as well get credit for it (by way of an apparently brutally difficult exam).

Do you have a recommendation for the best way to get into AM? It seems like there are options straight from an MBA, but I've seen sell-side ER and IB to be pretty common paths as well. Finally, have you seen any luck with off-cycle (paid or unpaid) AM/ER internships? As I mentioned above, I'm hoping to get some finance experience in the field after I get out of the military but prior to starting an MBA.

Thanks again!

Usually your university is going to require you to take specific finance classes for your first few years. At the senior level there are a lot of options to do more finance electives. I would suggest taking portfolio engineering, something like trading in financial securities markets, and maybe some statistics. This all depends on what your are interested in though. I'm more interested in investment related material. To find out what area you think you might like in finance I would read the articles on the website mergersandinquisitions.com. They have stories and advice on there that is really helpful.

Also read some books like The Intelligent Investor, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and any book written by Michael Lewis. After that, you should have a good idea about what interests you and then you can go from there.

Hope this helped! Good luck to you in your studies.

That's a good one. I also liked One Up on Wall Street for investing basics.

But yes, I have several suggestions!

• The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
• Anti-fragile by Nassim Taleb
• Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs
• The Snowball by Alice Schroder? That Buffett Bio...

Let me know if you want more. Podcasts and iTunes U are also really great!

• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
• The Intelligent Investor
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street

These three might not teach you about financial planning per say, but definitely will give you some insight into financial markets and investments.

Just FYI W3 schools are not the best resource to learn from. Dont take my word for it: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/280478/why-not-w3schools-com They have outdated documentation, sometimes years old. If you have time, there are better books and resources out there.

If your job depends on SQL and databases, I have heard good things about: Murach's SQL Server 2016 for Developers

GL!

Pretty expensive, so I'd recommend any older edition. But this is the same textbook I used in my Derivatives course, it's basically an industry standard.

https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Futures-Options-Markets-9th/dp/0134083245/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

Get a sales job somewhere.

Being a stock broker surprisingly has very little to do with selling stocks as it does with growing your assets under management. To grow your AUM you need to learn to sell a lifestyle to a potential client and give them the idea that their money is safe with you. Sales jobs will help structure your pitch.

You need to be able to learn about how you financial instruments work and explain the daily economic events in plain english to people but the expectation isn't to call the market 100% of the time. The firm you work for will have an entire research department to support you and they'll usually do most of the hard work, just read the reports every morning and parrot their advice. I've met IA's that have never made their own call on a position their entire career.

This is one of the careers in finance where you're ability to succeed isn't dictated by your smarts but by who you and your family knows. You could hustle all day but if you don't know any rich folks its going to be a hard uphill battle.

One book that I was given early on that did help me was https://www.amazon.ca/Serious-Money-Marketing-Mutual-Funds/dp/0943570115

Not the best but it helped point me in the right direction mentality wise.

i guess i know all of those things, but it's great to get a reminder. thanks for the advice.

as far as "necessary qualities" go... what are your thoughts on the specific qualities a quantitative strategist should have? technically, i'm sound: i'm good at programming; i have a strong statistics background. my weakness is a lack of background in markets but i'm doing some reading to learn about market structures (http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Trading-DMA-introduction-strategies/dp/0956399207/). any other recommendations?

Monkey Business by John Rolfe and Peter Troob. Chronicles the life as a junior banker in the mid-90s at a top firm (DLJ). Easy to read and satirical/comical, but still informative

Don't worry about not being a finance major. Read this book to learn more about IB. Read the WSJ/FT/Economist regularly, and continue to network. Investopedia is another great resource. Don't waste time on the CFA because the time you could spend networking would be much more useful.

Also try and get leadership positions for any clubs you're in if you haven't already.

I am selling my Series 66 Training Consultants Access to the Online ExamCenter for $70 ($30 value) if anyone is interested. Login access is valid until 3/20/15. It has been used, but there is an unlimited amount of exams that can be taken until expiration. Below is the Amazon listing I created for the code.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RYLTIKQ

Learn about Shale Gas, OPEC, and what recently has been happening to the price of crude oil I'm certain they will ask about that.

This is also a great book http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power/dp/1439110123/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1420766548&sr=8-5&keywords=oil+and+gas