You stated: No one is talking about ... . This is a thread about Jim Cramer. An Ivy Leaguer with the major I stated. Then you stated: M.B.A. &/or finance ... . Only U of Penn I believe offers a finance undergraduate major of the four you listed. You stated average salary $129,xxx for hedge fund manager. Why would someone with M.B.A. from the four schools you listed work as a hedge fund manager for $129,xxx? A person with M.B.A. from one of the schools you listed could make more in middle management at 3M or Microsoft or Motorola, etc. I stand by my post. Someone with an accounting major from any school would do as well as anyone at a hedge fund. Again, hedge fund is not the apex of financial services anyway.
I “interned” at two weeks for a boutique IB firm specializing in M&A in their specific industry as part of my high school’s career development program - basically, after the end of classes senior year, we’d spend two weeks exploring an industry we were interested in.
The work is often repetitive and mindless (a lot of Excel and changing formatting on PowerPoints), but the deals are actually enjoyable. However, even at this small (but prestigious) firm, they’d usually work about 80-85 hour weeks, but near deadlines it’d go to about 100-110. they wouldn’t be called into the office at 2AM, but there were (busy) times when they’d work from about 6-6:30 to nearly midnight.
Serious question: What kind of work are you able to do if you work 100-110 hours? 12 hours for 6 days just adds up to 72 hours and that seems already ridiculous.
110 over 7 days are 15.7 hours per day. No way in hell anybody is "working" that.
Some people sought employment at hedge funds in 2000s because N.Y.S.E. firms ceased sponsoring brokers/financial advisors with Series 3 licenses. When I was in college, no one talked about seeking employment at hedge funds because so many services used to be offered at n.y.s.e. firms.
I literally don't even know what this means or what you're talking about.
You should not have posted pretending to know how investments and trading operate. If you ever worked in the business, my post would make sense.
110 hours would be if they have 3+ deals closing at once, but I’m counting (since everyone else does) the total hours as the total time in the office. Someone may only work for 85 hours a week, but have a 1 hour (semi-working) lunch, a 1.5 hour dinner / gym time in the evening, and a couple of shorter breaks throughout the day. They’re still in the office for about 110 hours though.
I’m not even counting the down hours when you talk with coworkers and are just checking emails. If you don’t fully count them, you’re probably only working 75 hours. Lastly, people will exaggerate some, but they’re not exaggerating that much.
I’m going off memory here, but someone I spoke with about 5 years ago (pre-Covid, in a normal week) would get into the office at 9, would check emails / gossip a little bit until 9:30. Then he’d work some in Excel / PowerPoint doing what his MD wanted until about noon, he’d have lunch until one, then would go back to fully working until 5-6 (of course, with periodic email breaks and chatting with coworkers). The MD would probably be gone by then, but he’d email a couple of things he wanted and then have dinner / gym time. He’d return to work between 8-9, do a little more work (to be honest, looking a little busy) and would then probably do the MD’s last edits before doing some work on his own and leaving at around midnight.
Some of that is tedious, but it’s not that difficult and goes by quickly when you get into a rhythm. What’s really boring is if you have to (for example) change the font and borders on a 100+ page slide deck, or redo a lot of excel work to get what the MD wants for a valuation.*
* Most calculations have a 10-20% range - if your MD wants a lower value, then you’d assume lower growth rates and other lower values. It’s a little controversial, but typically the MDs have enough experience to determine something’s (relatively) fair value. They just want something confirming their beliefs and that they can use, so they’ll tell their associates and analysts to create data that “works”.
I literally don't even know what this means or what you're talking about.
You should not have posted pretending to know how investments and trading operate. If you ever worked in the business, my post would make sense.
I can't tell if this is a joke or not?
You said nobody wanted to work at a HF b/c "N.Y.S.E. firms ceased sponsoring ... series 3". Why would you need a broker's license to work as a trader/quant at a HF?
What were the "services" you are referring to? I've been on the Street for the last 20 years and I don't recall a dearth of talent due to "people not seeking employment due to services on n.y.s.e. firms series 3 blah blah blah"
Seriously, I have no clue wtf you are talking about (and clearly neither do you)
I “interned” at two weeks for a boutique IB firm specializing in M&A in their specific industry as part of my high school’s career development program - basically, after the end of classes senior year, we’d spend two weeks exploring an industry we were interested in.
The work is often repetitive and mindless (a lot of Excel and changing formatting on PowerPoints), but the deals are actually enjoyable. However, even at this small (but prestigious) firm, they’d usually work about 80-85 hour weeks, but near deadlines it’d go to about 100-110. they wouldn’t be called into the office at 2AM, but there were (busy) times when they’d work from about 6-6:30 to nearly midnight.
Serious question: What kind of work are you able to do if you work 100-110 hours? 12 hours for 6 days just adds up to 72 hours and that seems already ridiculous.
110 over 7 days are 15.7 hours per day. No way in hell anybody is "working" that.
You stated: No one is talking about ... . This is a thread about Jim Cramer. An Ivy Leaguer with the major I stated. Then you stated: M.B.A. &/or finance ... . Only U of Penn I believe offers a finance undergraduate major of the four you listed. You stated average salary $129,xxx for hedge fund manager. Why would someone with M.B.A. from the four schools you listed work as a hedge fund manager for $129,xxx? A person with M.B.A. from one of the schools you listed could make more in middle management at 3M or Microsoft or Motorola, etc. I stand by my post. Someone with an accounting major from any school would do as well as anyone at a hedge fund. Again, hedge fund is not the apex of financial services anyway.
THey all offer Business Degrees at the undergraduate levels, even though not necessarily Finance per se. A long way from degrees in political science and whatever else you are trying to pass them off as. And it is not so much about Cramer as a field. And we amended the salary figures later in the thread, fyi.
I never worked for a hedge fund but I did work in wealth management and hold the CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) charter. Hedge funds are great... for those running them and perhaps for many of their employees. But, on the whole, investors would do better to invest in broad index funds from Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity or others with very low expense ratios (<0.10%). Or even consulting a service such as Vanguard's PAS (Personal Advisor Services which charges a 0.3% fee for the typical investor). I like the idea of hedge funds (broader investment opportunities than a portfolio of standard stocks and bonds), but with management fees of 2% and a 20% take of profits above a hurdle, few hedge funds deliver better value than basic low-cost index funds. Warren Buffett has said so repeatedly. And he has praised Vanguard founder John Bogle:
“If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the handsdown choice should be Jack Bogle. For decades, Jack has urged investors to invest in ultra-low-cost index funds. In his crusade, he amassed only a tiny percentage of the wealth that has typically flowed to managers who have promised their investors large rewards while delivering them nothing – or, as in our bet, less than nothing – of added value."
"In his early years, Jack was frequently mocked by the investment-management industry. Today, however, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me.”
And you can crowdsource very sage advice in forums such as Bogleheads.org where many of the posters are devotees of Bogle's investment philosophy.
The most celebrated investor of our time, Warren Buffett, praises Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard: “If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the handsdown choice should...
"What's important when you are in that hedge-fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful because the truth is so against your view, that it's important to create a new truth, to develop a fiction."
110 hours would be if they have 3+ deals closing at once, but I’m counting (since everyone else does) the total hours as the total time in the office. Someone may only work for 85 hours a week, but have a 1 hour (semi-working) lunch, a 1.5 hour dinner / gym time in the evening, and a couple of shorter breaks throughout the day. They’re still in the office for about 110 hours though.
I’m not even counting the down hours when you talk with coworkers and are just checking emails. If you don’t fully count them, you’re probably only working 75 hours. Lastly, people will exaggerate some, but they’re not exaggerating that much.
I’m going off memory here, but someone I spoke with about 5 years ago (pre-Covid, in a normal week) would get into the office at 9, would check emails / gossip a little bit until 9:30. Then he’d work some in Excel / PowerPoint doing what his MD wanted until about noon, he’d have lunch until one, then would go back to fully working until 5-6 (of course, with periodic email breaks and chatting with coworkers). The MD would probably be gone by then, but he’d email a couple of things he wanted and then have dinner / gym time. He’d return to work between 8-9, do a little more work (to be honest, looking a little busy) and would then probably do the MD’s last edits before doing some work on his own and leaving at around midnight.
Some of that is tedious, but it’s not that difficult and goes by quickly when you get into a rhythm. What’s really boring is if you have to (for example) change the font and borders on a 100+ page slide deck, or redo a lot of excel work to get what the MD wants for a valuation.*
* Most calculations have a 10-20% range - if your MD wants a lower value, then you’d assume lower growth rates and other lower values. It’s a little controversial, but typically the MDs have enough experience to determine something’s (relatively) fair value. They just want something confirming their beliefs and that they can use, so they’ll tell their associates and analysts to create data that “works”.
Thanks for that detailed answer. Kind of what I expected. So they are basically changing fonts in Power Point and pretend to be busy. Nothing which couldn't be done in 35-40 hours a week more efficiently.
- been doing it for ~13yrs in quant fixed income (bonds)
- hours aren’t that demanding in my role, most days ~7am to 4. Not a lot for me to do when the market is closed.
- job is very stressful in the best of times, makes you want to jump off a bridge in the worst.
- seemed like a ‘cool’ job for a while, but now I look at my peers and just see a bunch of overpaid babies with overinflated egos
- most ‘successful’ managers just load on some multi year market theme and ride it until it’s over, will never be successful again. recent examples include tech stock sheep, dollar momentum sheep … really, any type of momentum trader now thinks they’re the next Warren Buffett. so much survivorship bias.
- my only recommendation is if you have a contrarian bent to your investment approach, then just don’t do it … you’ll be wrong a lot, often in seemingly dumb ways because you’re doing the opposite of what the Wall Street journal says to do. It’s a miserable life.
Yes, and that’s one reason why most people leave IB after 2-3 years for the exit opportunities. If you work as a banker at a BB, you can get anything after, but those “intro” years (think like a residency but for finance) are soul-crushing.
There are more engaging parts, but they’re difficult. Doing research on other related companies to come up with fair valuation isn’t easy, nor is (after you’re past the analyst / associate stage) meeting with the C-suite of the company you’re helping buy/sell, but your connections and network will be massive.
My most enjoyable years of work were at a hedge fund. Most funds have small teams which means working well together can make all the difference in your experience and performance. I was part of a team of people I'd already worked with at my former bank and liked a lot. It was never nearly as stressful as the trading floor of the bank. The pace and scrambles are just not the same. With that said, it's a whole different ballgame than marking-making where you basically always start with a margin that is mostly yours to lose. At a fund you always start below water since you have to make up for the fund's expenses. Also, at a bank you take for granted the amazing operational infrastructure at your disposal. If you are with a fund from thd start up phase you realize how challenging it can be to set up the pipes and do basic things.
Most of the stress falls on the CIO and PMs, who have to deal with clients and difficult strategy decisions when the markets aren't going their way. Another part I enjoyed was the freedom to problem-solve and execute with more creativity. I didn't have to deal with bureaucracy and many ideas were easy to implement. In HFs it's a gamble. Sometimes you work hard for years and the fund just can't perform well under the market conditions. Some years the pay is amazing and you feel on top of the world. The hours weren't awful for me, most of the time it was 70/week. And it is not common for people in HFs to be able to easily move to other types of funds like PE/VC, they are all very different. Even across HFs, there are many different strategies requiring different skillsets and experience. There are of course a variety of players across asset management that feed capital into the funds and support the infrastructure of funds, and the money at those shops are generally much lower and the work less stressful. Also, if you find yourself in a team full of grade A aholes with a loose cannon for a boss you won't last, even if the money is good.
You stated: No one is talking about ... . This is a thread about Jim Cramer. An Ivy Leaguer with the major I stated. Then you stated: M.B.A. &/or finance ... . Only U of Penn I believe offers a finance undergraduate major of the four you listed. You stated average salary $129,xxx for hedge fund manager. Why would someone with M.B.A. from the four schools you listed work as a hedge fund manager for $129,xxx? A person with M.B.A. from one of the schools you listed could make more in middle management at 3M or Microsoft or Motorola, etc. I stand by my post. Someone with an accounting major from any school would do as well as anyone at a hedge fund. Again, hedge fund is not the apex of financial services anyway.
THey all offer Business Degrees at the undergraduate levels, even though not necessarily Finance per se. A long way from degrees in political science and whatever else you are trying to pass them off as. And it is not so much about Cramer as a field. And we amended the salary figures later in the thread, fyi.
Try to keep up.
Of the eight Ivy League schools, only Penn and Cornell offer undergraduate business degrees.
Of the top 10 schools in the US News Rankings, I believe Duke and Penn are the only ones to offer undergrad finance and business degrees respectively. Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UChicago, Columbia, and Northwestern all have M7 b-schools but do not offer undergrad business degrees.
Top undergrad business programs outside of Penn are basically at the big state flagships: Cal (Haas), UMich (Ross), UT-Austin (McCombs), etc. These schools place many students into investment banking, but on a per-capita basis the top private schools probably do a bit better.
Let’s be honest - they don’t have “business” degrees, but a degree in economics functions as one. Hell, if you take a couple of Econ classes, you can major in a hard science and still get a job. The banks look for competency so you need Econ fundamentals, but they’d like to just IQ test people. However, since a woke SCOTUS decision ~50 years ago banned that, they resort to things that are proxies for IQ, such as a high GPA in a difficult major from a good college and standardized test scores.
When you watch his show, how do you know whether or not he's currently in "hedge fund mode"? He says in this interview that when he's in that mode he likes to spread propaganda on CNBC.
Partner at a private equity shop here. Most of the discussion here has focused around investment banking, less about hedge funds or PE or other avenues of "high finance". Like most careers, if you enjoy the work, then it'll work out for you in the end. The note about i-banking being a residency of sorts is 100% correct; many will stay, since banks are paying really well right now. A 3rd year analyst can make between $300-400k / year - this is a 24 year old kid.
The key difference in HF vs. PE is whether you are market focused or private company focused. You're essentially doing the same analysis, looking for trends and opportunities that have not been widely captured by the market. Or jump on a trend and ride it until the conclusion, as another poster mentions. For me, HF wasn't the way to go - even though I have a double major from an Ivy-league school and also an MBA from another Ivy-league school, I didn't want to be tied to the whims of the public markets. PE is longer duration, more people-focused, lots more interaction. While there are industry conferences and peers, HF is typically more quant, analytical and dispassionate. Just my view.
The compensation information is widely available; I'm not sure why there is confusion here. IT varies wildly based on both assets under management (AUM) and success in a given year. If my firm successfully grows a company and turns $100mm of equity into $300mm, we get to share $40mm amongst ourselves; that's carried interest. I also earn cash compensation, which at my small place is $500-750k/year, plus the carried interest. But I also have a good lifestyle and don't live in NYC. Several of my friends make $1-2mm in cash per year, but work longer hours and have less flexibility.
Let’s be honest - they don’t have “business” degrees, but a degree in economics functions as one. Hell, if you take a couple of Econ classes, you can major in a hard science and still get a job. The banks look for competency so you need Econ fundamentals, but they’d like to just IQ test people. However, since a woke SCOTUS decision ~50 years ago banned that, they resort to things that are proxies for IQ, such as a high GPA in a difficult major from a good college and standardized test scores.
Btw, this is exactly correct. I'm Physics and Econ - physics being a much more difficult degree, but proves I can do math - so getting a banking job was pretty straightforward.
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