It’s kind of weird how people on this site talk about investment grade fixed income analysis like it’s glamorous. To each their own, I suppose.
OP, what I would do in your shoes is get some temporary contract employment, probably through a recruiter and probably in operations. You need something on your resume that shows you can do a job. Work hard. Once working there as a temp apply to permanent roles. You should have great knowledge about the job since you are already working at the company. Take it from there and do not stagnate. See if they have a program where they’ll reimburse you for a masters or MBA, pass CFA, eventually you will have a nice career.
I understand the point you are making, but this exact analogy with the hours you selected would only work if you were born at approximately 3:06 am, which seems like a fairly random starting point to pick.
Depends on the shop, there’s definitely a wide range of variability. PIMCO or the like is a pretty great job IMO. You’re going to spend most of your life making $300k+ which isn’t insane money but is good by objective statistics.
I switched into a finance path when I was about your age using the CFA with a poor education record, failed a class or 2 myself. I only had a call back after passing level 2 from a very, very small firm for below market pay, and had to relocate at my expense. These days, I’m doing better. I figured, I have to probably work 40 more years or so, no harm in trying, just $1k or so and a couple months to feel out level 1.
brah I don’t disagree with any of these calculations but not sure what problem it is that you are solving? In your original statement OP was 26, not 25; life expectancy was 75, not 80; and the OP’s age when mapped onto a 24-hour period was equivalent to 10am, not 11:18 am. So you didn’t wake up at 6am - it was 3:06 am. Even Bezos was asleep at this hour.
Bezos is a late waker, furthermore. He doesn’t schedule meetings before 10AM. Some people have different rhythms.
I don’t know, brah. I can hardly imagine anyone making this kind of switch. Clearly you have some kind of special juice or something. Still not sure how you did it.
nothing wrong with fixed income. In reality, fixed income is where the most money is made at the hedge fund level. you got plain corp fixed income then you have cmbs, mbs, whole loan, sovereign bond then naturally comes the swaps trading all in one shop.
Clearly, that’s why I said “investment grade” fixed income, but maybe I should have specified that I’m talking about pretty vanilla stuff. I just don’t think of picking agencies, treasuries and IG corporates (PG, KO, etc.) for fund with a tracking error focus of 1.5% as particularly glamorous. But, that’s why I said “to each their own.” I guess my point is “front office” can mean very different things and it probably doesn’t make sense to focus solely on that.
All the things he said can take place in IG fixed income. If you’re at Doubleline or PIMCO you’re probably doing some pretty advanced stuff. Mentioning tracking error is kind of a false dichotomy. Like saying managing an equity portfolio for Vanguard makes equity investing vanilla. I just think your characterization of IG investing is anchored in passive and insurance portfolios which is not representative of the competitive total return industry where you have to worry about a lot of things that equity guys don’t. Just seems like you’re trying hard to make a point that’s not really grounded in reality. For every grey hair picking KO in a portfolio you have an equity guy managing a sleepy pension equity portfolio with no idea what they’re doing.
Right, I don’t consider Vanguard glamorous whatsoever. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good job. And I understand PIMCO total return is tons of derivatives (all derivatives?) and many people that work there are smarter than me. But the OP is not working at a top tier shop any time soon. In my clarification I said “pretty vanilla stuff,” which what I was referencing in the original one sentence comment. From my perspective there is so much more out there, but aspirational analysts focus on what mutual fund investing was like twenty years ago because they’re unaware of what’s available…but “to each their own.”
me neither, maybe I’ll flame out soon and fall back in the shallows or end up launching my own hedge fund and become a BSD or both, no one knows, tune in to find out!
Most insurance based advisor groups will hire you commission only. They will pay for or subsidize your securities licensing. I believe bank based shops might be the next easiest. You can try places like Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch but the hurdle is higher since they pay part salary to begin and you need to prove you have the market before you get hired. Their investment minimums and sales qouats are painful for beginners. Thier (Merrill) recruitment process is very enlightening though. You should try it just to learn and see what they do.
You can go and get your insurance licenses (Life, Annuities, and Health) and your 65 before you apply. That will improve your chances of getting hired everywhere. With a 65 you can apply to RIAs and small asset management companies. Apply everywhere though. Don’t pass on an opportunity because your self esteem is low. Many companies will train you. Bad grades aren’t always relevant. Its about what you can do now. Advisor jobs are always about your ability to produce (sell). Sales sucks but its good training and you learn how all the investment products help real people. Most of the time you pick who you market to. So of you want to sell to corporate clients, you can. Most of my clients come to me now for financial plans and I close 90%. That takes time to get like that. In the beginning you need to be prepared to work very hard 6 days a week prospecting.
The pay can be good. I know advisors who barely graduated college and are making around $300k. $40k - 50k is More likely.
I would suggest that if you want to become and Advisor that you start out at an RIA firm as an Associate, get to learn all aspects of the business from a senior advisor and then go from there (spend at least 2-3 years in this role). You would likely get a base salary, which may not be too much, but certainly less risky than going balls deep out on your own straight out of the gate.
No offense to OP, but I doubt he’s getting hired at even a semi-decent RIA. Those are pretty competitive jobs.
To OP, I’d stay away from the wires (Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Wells Fargo {ok, Wells might be okay}) because they generally require you meet certain AUM thresholds in your first year, or maybe it’s your third year…it’s been a while since I worked with the wires. Anyway, I’d go with an independent shop like LPL, Raymond James, or even Ameriprise. They get shit on a lot here but they’ll hire you and there are good advisors there. Look into Cetera, Cambridge, and Northwestern Mutual as well (more insurance based but they do a fair amount of investments too).
Being a bank rep is okay because you generally don’t have to prospect as much, but those jobs are harder to get than the ones I mentioned above.