<p>Some guys are also lazy and don;t mind if their wives earn more money. I dont mind if my wife earns more cash than I do so long as I’m earning enough that I dont have to ask her for money to buy things.</p>
<p>The issue isn’t that of money or earning power - it comes down to the inherent personality traits of female bankers: they are oftentimes career-driven, overly ambitious, type A women. Frankly, all the girls I know who are in banking are cold-hearted bit*ches with huge chips on their shoulders.</p>
<p>That’s a good point. What real man would want to come home after competing all day at work so that they can compete with their wives back at home? When they go home, they want to relax and actually have a wife that is there at home for them, not one that is stuck in the office 24/7.</p>
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<p>pretty much yeah…</p>
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<p>The world view of a boy whose masculinity is easily threatened?</p>
<p>You boys, and I do mean boys, will not make it at any investment bank with your issues. Banks are doing a decent job of purging themselves of people with these views and the ever increasing number of women on The Street has brought the thinking of a more evolved generation.</p>
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<p>On the contrary, I would wager that top ibanking guys are one of the most chauvinistic group of people</p>
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Translation: You boys will not make it at any investment bank as long as your beliefs and customs about the role of females are not the same as mine.</p>
<p>You really need to separate what are “issues” and what are personal preferences in dating. As I see it, they never said women were bad investment bankers. All they did say was that they would not date a female investment banker. There’s a difference, hmom5. Unless of course, you cannot see the difference because you believe female investment bankers have zero flaws.</p>
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Are you suggesting correlation or causation? Because if what you say is true, we could also say there’s a correlation between how badly an investment bank has done (recently) and the increase in the number of female ibankers in the field (currently and as you claim). Please, don’t bring assertions that cannot be quantified and substantiated into the argument.</p>
<p>We can see who has the biggest ego (to protect) in this entire thread.</p>
<p>Aston, ah youth. If you were to go to any of the major firm’s functions and meet the wives of this generation of ibankers, you’d immediately know that’s not the case.</p>
<p>I started reading this thread to get more information on ibanking and how to break into the track living on the west coast in SoCal. Instead, it seems that there is everything in between, but not too much on the topic at hand. Maybe you guys can banter on another thread …</p>
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<p>Now, most importantly, I am interested in becoming a trader. I don’t necessarily have to work for a BB firm, as I am the entrepreneurial type, but I do want to get a few solid years of experience in a middle market shop or even a BB if that is a possibility. </p>
<p>I will most likely be going to UCLA (or UCI, UCSD, USC), studying either computer science (I would do well at this degree) or business economics. As for my personality and ability to do sales, portray competence, communicate at a professional level… not an issue. </p>
<p>What do I need to be doing to break into trading, preferably on the west coast? Any input on my major, types of internships, grades, extracurricular, etc would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Trader’s personality is very different than in sales. Fit in this case is very important.</p>
<p>My brother was in FI sales for 20 years, a top producer for his firm. His best friend ran a trading desk, graduate of MIT engineering. He is an introvert, a man of very few words. He was speaking with my sister-in-law, a stay at home mom, who buys and sell a lot on Ebay. They got into a discussion on her strategy of bidding on eBay. She said she would never fall in love with any item, and there is always a cap for her, never get too greedy or emotional. My brother’s friend, out of the blue, offered to train her as a trader because he felt she had the right personality for it (he has only made that offer to a very few people). My brother was quite offended because he has asked his friend to train him over the years. The friend said, “you get too emotional, and to trade you need to have a cool head with no ego.”</p>
<p>There was an article about what kind of personality you need to do different types work in ibanking - Trader, sales, investment banker, structurer, researcher… </p>
<p>Almost any major would be good for trading, but CS is very good. Most trading is very high tech now. Traders that could communicate well with their IT support, or could do some simple programming to manage their books is very valuable to a team. Many top programmers in my days have gone into trading - the reason being they had to understand trader’s hedge strategy, risk calculations better than anyone in order to develop an efficient trading system. I would do CS, engineering, and a lot of finance courses.</p>
<p>This is a bit of rambling, but I don’t know if S&T is good to get into for the long term. Trading is very high pressured, and many people do get burned out. Other than trading for yourself, there is not much you could do if you were let go, like so many recently. Sales is very sepecific to a sector or region. If you were a top producer Asia covering central banks, it would be hard for you to come back to US or other parts of the world because lack of client list (you are only as good as your client contact). Again, what could you do outside of institutional sales after 10-20 years, what industry would hire you. With many of our friends at age 40+, they are having a hard time to find any backup plan.</p>
<p>Thank you oldfort, that was very informative. </p>
<p>The part you wrote about trading and its future is especially interesting to me. A friend of mine worked at a prop shop specializing in bonds (i think) for two years, and then went to get his MBA. That is something I might want to do after a few years of actual trading. That way, the MBA would give me the opportunity to leverage my skills into another position possibly. </p>
<p>Are there any fields in ibanking that the least competitive to get into, but still pay well, and have a good future as job mobility and advancement?</p>
<p>Many support functions are easier to get into and still pay better than most other jobs. One that comes to mind is risk management, if you are a good quant person. It has become increasingly more important to every financial instituion. Another area of interest is work out for non-performing assets.</p>
<p>I have done structuring, but ultimately ended up in IT (never taken a programming class). Senior IT managers could do very well, especially in the front office area. There is a lot of pressure (wrong calculation, or system fail could potentially cost firm a lot of money), but the pressure is more constant and less. They don’t make millions like S&T, but most of us could very comfortably live around NYC area, and send our kids to any private colleges. We don’t get burned out as much, and if this doesn’t work out our skills are transferable to any industry (what do we care if we were transporting securities or dog food?). I’ve had many younger developers move from programming to trading. I think it is attention to detail, and able to pull the trigger when necessary.</p>
<p>@hmom5</p>
<p>I understand you might have been working in M&A for the last 30 years (I have been reading the ibanking forum thoroughly as of late), but is it really necessary for you to get into arguments with people on quite a few of these threads? You say that you want to pursue education, which I think is fantastic, but maybe your approach on these threads is not what you want to portray in the real world. A lot of people might be turned off. </p>
<p>You sound like a mature adult professional… maybe start taking the higher ground? After all you are talking to high school or college students.</p>
<p>Just a thought. </p>
<p>Can you give me some input on trading, and if it is necessary to work on the street to learn good fundamentals? I have been offered a professional trading course by my father, which taught by ex-wall street traders. I am wondering if I should enroll in it.</p>
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whereas some of us would find any woman who didn’t exhibit at least a little bit of that drive to be quite boring.</p>
<p>I’ve dated fat girls, thin girls, pretty girls, not-quite-so-pretty girls, athletes, academics… but the common thread has been that they’re all smart, they all have a wit that can keep up with mine, and there’s something about them that I find inspiring - something to live up to and learn from. “Oh wow you’re pretty, at least for the next 5 years or so, and do modeling” is hardly inspiring. It’s a checkbox approach to dating - “yup, you’re hot enough, hop on board!”</p>
<p>I live in New York because I never want to be bored. I choose a challenging career path because I never want to be bored. I HATE being bored, it’s much worse than being stressed. Likewise, I date driven women because I never want to be bored.</p>
<p>I’m far from alone in that.</p>
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<p>You know that’s not what I meant</p>
<p>what would lead us to believe that you’re less shallow than that? Post #124?</p>
<p>Denzera, you have clearly never dated a woman obsessed with advancing her career at all costs (and at the expense of a relationship). The type of women who have an inferiority complex of sorts and walk around Wall Street with a chip on their shoulders the size of Montana. The type that spend needless and unnecessary hours on menial projects irrelevant to a current deal. The type that orgasm at the thought of the credit markets loosening back up. I have a great deal of respect for these women as bankers and professionals, but as human beings and potential relationship partners, they are an absolute mess and totally dysfunctional, severely incapable of long-term marriage and motherhood. This used to be just an argument against MALE bankers; not the case anymore as women are more represented in the banking sector. Trust me, a cutthroat “close the deal at all costs” personality is neither sexy nor desirable (unless you’re…well, you know).</p>
<p>I’m not saying that all women should be homemakers and feign apathy and disregard ambition/intelligence. If you think that was mentioned at all in this thread, you clearly lack basic literacy skills. A girlfriend or wife should challenge you, fight you, defend her own dispositions. I’m all for strong symbols of womanhood – that’s sexy to me. But when a woman loses sight of what is important in a relationship - and lets her career eclipse everything else - then there is a HUGE problem.</p>
<p>ALL women (especially the junior bankers) in finance are like that: they value their careers moreso than fruitful personal relationships. Anyone disagrees either has never worked with a female banker or has never been in a meaningful relationship.</p>
<p>Would you say these traits are good in a man? </p>
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<p>Please read, oldfort.</p>
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It’s called a double standard, oldfort.
A man that is like that is “ambitious”. A female that exhibits those qualities is a “b*tch”. That’s the way the world works…</p>