<p>hey, I'm seriously considering pursuing an IB profession, specifically trading, which would start with me being an analyst and associate etc...</p>
<p>what math topics would one recommend to be thorough in before coming into this profession</p>
<p>i know traders dont do the models, quants do, but i assume ill need to know at least valuation models. </p>
<p>what else should I know? calculus based stats?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Trading and investment banking are two different roles. </p>
<p>Traders need to know more math than bankers do. The math that it takes to do valuation models/comps/etc in investment banking is not complex. </p>
<p>Traders on the other hand benefit from having a good background in calculus, linear algebra, etc. A lot of trading strategy is math-based, and the analysis of derivatives (think topics like Black-Scholes) makes extensive use of more advanced math such as calculus.</p>
<p>You don’t need to be an investment banker to be a trader or vise-versa. Thus, your intended career path between the two will dictate how much math you need to learn.</p>
<p>all you need is addition and subtraction. </p>
<p>when things get difficult bust out some multiplication and division</p>
<p>^ that doesn’t sound too hard, but in the division would you ever come across an improper fraction? that **** is tricky…</p>
<p>Nah… fractions are friendly, decimals are deadly.</p>
<p>For banking, Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division pretty much covers it. In fact, with Excel, some bankers barely know them - but I wouldn’t recommend relying solely on Excel since a math error there is not acceptable if your excuse is: “Well Excel said it was true!”</p>
<p>For trading, that depends - some quant traders would need to know calc, and beyond, others won’t have to know much more than bankers. </p>
<p>As others have said, banking and trading are pretty different, so depending on which you want to pursue, that will determine how much math you’ll really need.</p>
<p>IBanker</p>
<p>I’m surprised to see you make the leap to college confidential from WSO BankonBanking. Will be nice to have some genuine and reliable advice on these boards.</p>
<p>wth you don’t need to know + - * /</p>
<p>excel does it all for you</p>
<p>Thank you. I was actually on here before, but I used to put a signature in that mentioned my site, and they booted me off for it (I didn’t realize signatures like that were prohibited here). So now I’m back and signature free (at least a signature that mentions my site, haha).</p>
<p>IBanker</p>