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Bump. Interest Rate Derivatives, Lehman Brothers.

Re: JPMorgan Investment Bank Graduate Cocktail Reception and viewing of the 2008 Arch Velox, congrats on the IB job. But I thought you were doing a BE...so not penultimate yet???

Congrats. I would pick EY. Of the two, who manages more/biggest clients?

I mean getting into IB, since that it is the end goal. His record is soiled permanently by having a low UAI and going to UWS; he will be at a significant disadvantage to the top candidates from good unis with good marks, more relevant banking experience, lots of extracurricular achievements...

I think your chances are low - your real competitors have better UAIs and similar grades, and attend better unis.

Hedge funds are run privately to protect trade secrets, and thus getting in means you must be a proven performer (in the industry) and can add value (ie, boost their P&L). Many of them are set up by former traders/IBers from the big banks, and also by expert mathematicians/programmers (how...

Reality check: 1) Getting the knowledge (degree) is not enough...you need to have the smarts, full stop. If you're good enough to get a merit scholarship to support you, that's a good sign you're on par with your competition. Otherwise, forget it...finance is a tough business to get into...

Doing a PhD requires a lot of motivation...if you have that, you won't mind the time spent (and opportunity cost incurred). However, 3-5 yrs of independent ORIGINAL research requires a lot of motivation and tenacity as well as brains...It is not a decision to be taken lightly. Also, in...

There are a few counter arguments that come to my mind, but the most important one is: - Grading policies differ between faculties as marks awarded are awarded to differentiate between the best, the average and the worst performing students within a particular subject ("spread" of the marks...

I do not study consistently, just a couple of wks before assessments.

1. ~87 2. Check the myUNSW class utilisation page (google it) 3. I haven't so far.

You should be looking to enter a good uni like UNSW or USyd, and studying degrees like actuarial, finance, maths, etc (or any combination of these). It's a bit premature to say you want to work in a hedge fund: just get into a good uni and degree which matches your career goals (finance).

Are there are any professional development courses of relevance to derivatives structuring/trading/sales? Off the top of my head, it seems the following could be useful. - afma dealer accreditation diploma - bloomberg certification - maybe a masters in quant finance or equivalent (Wilmott...

The exceptions to the rule have been noted previously, eg my statement "with high probability". I disagree with your view on WAM. It would be safe to assume that ppl try very hard during their HSC so the UAI is a good summary measure of performance of students in the same situation (fewer...

The ordering is basically in line with the UAI cutoffs (which should be a fairly adequate predictor of an average WAM range, eg UAI 99.7+ ---> WAM 83+, etc). Maybe we should just ditch the degree classification, and use UAI as a yardstick of readiness for IB. I know it sounds cruel to tell the...

Schmeichung raises some pertinent points. Quants essentially only hire maths people (and any past connection to actuarial is usually irrelevant). Quant development needs software engineers. I would say as a quant you need to understand the basic maths properly and know how to extend it to new...

Thank you for your reply. Derivative sales/structuring seem to require similar pitching skills as to that of a IBD analyst. Is that a reason why their compensation is not too far off from one another? For derivative sales/trading/structuring, what does the percentage bonus range over?

I'm happy Lehman survives this quarter.

I just finished my BSc/BCom (Maths & Finance) degree last year. If you want challenging and interesting problems, you can do pure Maths (like extensions of Discrete Maths). Also, if you pick it up quick enough, there is certainly less work and study than Actuarial. The main problem is that...

What is the percentage breakdown for those who move on from Analyst to Associate level, stay on as an Analyst for an extra yr or get kicked out after the 2-yr graduate analyst program?