What hours do Investment Bankers work?
Discussion
When I was at a bank I did 7-6 non stop. that was trading and sales.
Now I do longer hours and I don't even work for a bank, directly at least.
From what i can see it goes something like this.
Trading and sales have a fairly fixed times usually from 6.30 am to 6ish 7ish.
Anyone working in advisory or lending (bonds, equity or cash) seem to get divided into execution of business who do stupid hours starting at 8 and finishing whenever they finish the deal, and originators of business who spend less time in the office but are always on hand for clients to talk through the deal as it happens or to travel/wine and dine to get a new deal.
Interestingly I have a client who is now in sales but was a top originator for years. He was really P*&sed when he got his first full bonus in sales. for doing shorter hours and actually having a social and family life for the first time since Uni he was paid nearly twice what he had been.
Moral of the story, don't go for the kudos of IB when at Uni they say get into banking but go and work on a trading or sales desk. Its the best of both worlds and as Tonker said they don't try and cut the bottom 10% every year (usually)
Now I do longer hours and I don't even work for a bank, directly at least.
From what i can see it goes something like this.
Trading and sales have a fairly fixed times usually from 6.30 am to 6ish 7ish.
Anyone working in advisory or lending (bonds, equity or cash) seem to get divided into execution of business who do stupid hours starting at 8 and finishing whenever they finish the deal, and originators of business who spend less time in the office but are always on hand for clients to talk through the deal as it happens or to travel/wine and dine to get a new deal.
Interestingly I have a client who is now in sales but was a top originator for years. He was really P*&sed when he got his first full bonus in sales. for doing shorter hours and actually having a social and family life for the first time since Uni he was paid nearly twice what he had been.
Moral of the story, don't go for the kudos of IB when at Uni they say get into banking but go and work on a trading or sales desk. Its the best of both worlds and as Tonker said they don't try and cut the bottom 10% every year (usually)
jimothy said:
IT side is more civilised. I do 8/8:30 to 5:30/6 and get paid a not unreasonable daily rate (no bonus though). Money is nothing compared to the business side, but is still very good for IT. I have done days from 8am till 2am before, but its rare.
When i was a Quant in IT, they paid me a token bonus of 3k, after doing quite a few late evenings. Manager wrote it down on a piece of paper to make it a surprise. I just laughed when he showed me it, and said £3k is a little bit less than i was expecting. He said "oh, we've made everything in EURO this year". Needless to say, i did 9-5.01 (guys at work refer to this as 'Levis') for the rest of that job.
I used to do a lot of Corporate Finance work and you end up doing whatever hours are required to get the deal done. 1.00am - 4.30am finishes followed by return to work for 7-8 am were not uncommon.
Its not a bad way to live when you are mid / late 20s with no wife and all you really want is Saturday night out - you end up with plenty of money when you are young enough to enjoy it. I also found it made me very good at organising myself and making the most of my free time (and very very intolerant of having my time wasted).
I don't do much now - got all the late nights delegated.
Its not a bad way to live when you are mid / late 20s with no wife and all you really want is Saturday night out - you end up with plenty of money when you are young enough to enjoy it. I also found it made me very good at organising myself and making the most of my free time (and very very intolerant of having my time wasted).
I don't do much now - got all the late nights delegated.
zed sump said:
think i know the answer to this one.... is it really too late to start a career in trading/ investment banking at age 28 (and with an engineering degree)? 
Funny you should say that. I moved from engineering to commodities at 27 (am now 29). Moving from petrochemical engineering (oil) to an oil trading environment is pretty common.
zed sump said:
think i know the answer to this one.... is it really too late to start a career in trading/ investment banking at age 28 (and with an engineering degree)?
It better not be as I'm 26 now and likely to be 29 post MBA!
Thanks for your answers guys it preety much confirmed what I thought. I applied to be a trader when I was at uni but I guess I didn't put enough key words in those stupid online apps to make the cut.
I figure with an accountancy qualification and the MBA Corporate Finance is probably the best fit for me. Having said that from the little I know about it Equity analysis seems really interesting too. Anyone care to share the nitty gritty of what it really involves?
Oh and every single lecture I ever attended stated that as the markets were pretty much semi-efficient, fundamental and technical analysis were useless. If that's true why do the banks pay the analysts?
eyebeebe said:
zed sump said:
think i know the answer to this one.... is it really too late to start a career in trading/ investment banking at age 28 (and with an engineering degree)?
It better not be as I'm 26 now and likely to be 29 post MBA!
Thanks for your answers guys it preety much confirmed what I thought. I applied to be a trader when I was at uni but I guess I didn't put enough key words in those stupid online apps to make the cut.
I figure with an accountancy qualification and the MBA Corporate Finance is probably the best fit for me. Having said that from the little I know about it Equity analysis seems really interesting too. Anyone care to share the nitty gritty of what it really involves?
Oh and every single lecture I ever attended stated that as the markets were pretty much semi-efficient, fundamental and technical analysis were useless. If that's true why do the banks pay the analysts?
...because they make the phone calls, do the grunt work, and cost less than 30 grand a year to run.
Even if you dont make jnr trader straight off, my two pals have both been offered jobs in the front office after less than a year, so analysts are still looked upon as a potential recruitment pool...
eyebeebe said:
Oh and every single lecture I ever attended stated that as the markets were pretty much semi-efficient, fundamental and technical analysis were useless. If that's true why do the banks pay the analysts?
Isn’t that what an indexed fund is? Why do we keep having economic crashes and bubbles if their predictions are anywhere near correct? How can you value a company as erratically as Amazon.com during the .com bubble and subsequent crash? I believe banks went through hard times in the early 90’s because they fell out of favour and their share price strongly reflected this. How can any one be conned into thinking the A380 will ever break even?
Institutional investors who are experienced are probably a little better at not getting carried away with the market highs and lows, just looking for companies that will outperform the market in the long term rather than tomorrows hottest thing.
There does seem to be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy about market analysts predictions now (whether they are staring into a crystal ball or actually based on statistical data), they make predictions and every one piles in until the share price reaches a certain predicted level.
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