Evidence that Norway and Sweden has some very skilled traders
We’re a little late on this, but the emergence of the ‘Robin Hood’ day traders in Norway and Sweden, who managed to profit from the flaws in algorithmic trading programmes, reignites the old man versus machine debate. Trading floors of investment banks have, of course, been cut back to the bone because of the rise [...]
GUEST COMMENT: I am not overqualified, I am over 40
When I was made redundant from my job as a middle office manager with a leading asset management company a few years ago, I didn’t envisage I’d have any problems finding an alternative position. After all, I had nearly 20 years’ experience within the investment business, many of them in a managerial and training capacity. [...]
Q&A with an anonymous senior fund manager: Is fund management really such a well paid, stress-free career:
Q: Let’s get right down to business. We’ve already heard the juicy bits of your escape from the back office – now we’d like to step into your shoes. So what do you actually do as a fund manager? How do you invest? A: It really depends. The industry encompasses so many different methods of [...]
This is the new man implicated in JPMorgan’s loss. This is the risk manager who’s going to rectify the problem. These are the fears for JPMorgan’s bonuses
Heads will roll. Bloomberg reports this morning that the entire London staff of JPMorgan’s chief investment office (CIO), numbering ‘several dozen’ are at risk of dismissal. Bonuses in London will fall, maybe by 50%. Seal Team 6 risk managers have been summoned to sort out the mess. Things at JPMorgan Europe are going to be [...]
GUEST COMMENT: The problem is, it’s too frightening to resign from a financial services job
If you still have a job in the City then you have something in common with the great novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In 1849, the writer was about to be shot by a firing squad for dissent when, at the last moment, he was pardoned by the Czar. Living with the threat of layoffs is like [...]
Q&A: Mike Connarty, director of international investments at Standard Life, advocates learning Mandarin if you want to get ahead
Mike Connarty is based in Edinburgh but he’s an international figure in financial services. As director of international investments, Mike manages Standard Life’s fast-growing joint venture investments in India and China. If you want to work for him, you’ll need a genuinely international outlook – and ideally the capacity to speak Mandarin. Q: How long [...]
GUEST COMMENT: As a junior corporate financier I am spending my life tweaking PowerPoint presentations
Many young undergraduates harbour dreams of becoming an investment banker when they finish university, but few know what the job entails. Those who know the reality have probably done an internship in the sector, be it in ECM, DCM or M&A. Some of these people have continued to bite the bullet and become full-fledged analysts, [...]
GUEST COMMENT: The 8 main reasons why people become investment bankers
There are different reasons why individuals become investment bankers. Chance plays a role, but deep-seated motivations are usually the determining factor. These motivations explain why so many bankers agree to work unusually long hours, put up with abnormally high levels of stress and sacrifice personal and leisure time. Take a look at the faces of [...]
GUEST COMMENT: I have attended a positively mind-blowing class as part of my Masters at the London Business School
Gabriel Chen is a Singaporean student at London Busines School and a former financial journalist for Singapore’s Straits Times. I recently wrapped up one of the best courses of my Masters in Finance at London Business School (LBS). Called Topics in Asset Management, it was taught by Robert Jenkins, an external member of the Interim [...]
A Q&A with Anil Hansjee, the former investment bank software engineer who became Google’s main M&A man in EMEA
Anil Hansjee has had quite a career. Having started out as a programmer at Swiss Bank Corp, now Union Bank of Switzerland, he moved into a risk-product role at Chemical/Chase (now JPMorgan) before making an unusual move into corporate finance. From there, he moved to the buyside and venture capital, and from there he moved [...]
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