How do you get a job at Morgan Stanley? As we reported earlier this week, it won’t happen for you if write ‘lol’ in your application or unleash drunken photos of yourself the internet. It will happen, however, if you intern three times at Morgan Stanley and spend one of those times working closely with chairman and chief executive James Gorman.
The Vault has a profile of just one such intern. In an article sponsored by Morgan Stanley, university student Victor Arribas explains how during his third successive internship at the bank, he worked with, ‘James’ [Gorman] himself. Arribas was as part of a small team that helped Gorman with, “prioritizing his time and client focus.”
James is a person with a, “strong presence,” says Arribas. He’s very tall. He, “listens well.” He asks, “extremely thoughtful questions,” has a “sense of humour” and is “easy to have a conversation with.” During one of these conversations, Arribas got some careers advice from his idol. If you want to get ahead in banking, Gorman informed Arribas that it helps to, “pace yourself.” It also helps to spend some time working overseas so that you gain, “cultural perspective and meet people of varying backgrounds.”
Arribas’s profile suggests that a little sycophancy will not astray either. He tells the Vault that Gorman had been his “role model since high school.” and that he was “extremely humbled” when he found out that he’d landed his first Morgan Stanley internship. During his times with the bank, Arribas says he had “nothing but the best experiences,” adding that MS “cares deeply about its interns,” and that James Gorman’s advice was “invaluable” to him.
Separately, what really happens in the bowels of a high frequency trading (HFT) firm? The Wall Street Journal offers some answers in an article on Charles River, the HFT which accounts for 5% of all the stocks traded daily in the U.S. Fundamentally, HFT is all about algorithm tweaking, explains Charles River co-founder Jason Carroll. About 80% of the work that goes on at Charles River every day involves fine tuning its algorithms according to historical correlation data. This work is never ever complete. “All of our models lose predictive power all of the time,” Carroll told the Journal. “You’re always on this treadmill of models running out of steam and having to make improvements to them.”
Meanwhile:
Credit Suisse won’t be hiring a lot of new mid-ranking M&A bankers. It plans to “selectively attract senior talent,” whilst hiring juniors and promoting everyone else internally. (SwissInfo)
Deutsche Bank’s head of corporate broking once worked for KPMG. Now he’s going back there as a senior member of KPMG’s capital advisory group. (Financial Times)
Investec’s formed a new financial sponsor group and has hired Christian Hess from UBS’s private equity group to lead it. (Financial News)
Suddenly, things aren’t going so well for equity capital markets bankers after all. (CityAm)
This is what really happened to JPMorgan’s sales and trading business in the third quarter. – Cash equities were very strong in EMEA, equity derivatives were down on a strong Q313. Electronic trading volumes rose 50% year-on-year in EMEA and 20% in the U.S. and fixed income looked bad because the physical commodities business has been sold. (Seeking Alpha)
M&A termination fees are becoming a thing. Even if deals don’t happen, bankers get paid. (Financial Times)
BlackRock has an operating margin of….44%. Banks, which are being squeezed by regulations, can look on and weep. (DealBook)
Banks’ demand for U.S. university students has increased 30% this year. (Wall Street Journal)
Bank of America’s earnings are a rounding error. Who knows if they’re right? (BloombergView)
Why you don’t want Google Glass. (Guardian)
There are more black and ethnically diverse people in banking than in the (liberal) press. (Guardian)
This is how much sleep you need, exactly. (MarketWatch)
Things to say that will make people trust you. (BusinessInsider)
Related articles:
The truth about pay at JPMorgan. The interview no trader wants to attend
How idiots mess up Morgan Stanley applications. The forgotten cabal within Deutsche Bank
How Colin Fan is keeping traders at Deutsche Bank. London bankers can’t afford 2nd child