Do you want to leave university and become a trader in an investment bank? You might want to check out our guide to jobs in sales and trading. You might also want to check out the presentation below from Anton Kreil, the ex-Goldman Sachs trader who runs the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management and who declared earlier this week that young traders in investment banks are only earning £11 an hour.
You can see Kreil’s full presentation here. In the meantime, we’ve pulled out the best bits (click to enlarge where necessary).
Where the traders sit in investment banks, asset management firms and private wealth managers:
What traders in investment banks really do:
What market makers in investment banks really do:
How does agency trading work?
How does the ‘risk business’ of a market making trader work?
According to Kreil, most trading jobs in investment banks now require limited skill and involve monitoring computer algorithms. Most of the ‘risk business’ of market making is now undertaken using computer algorithms says Kreil (as is the agency business). Traders often have multiple positions open at any one time and algorithms are better able to deal with this complexity than human beings.
“There is very little skill required in trading in an investment bank these days, because execution doesn’t require a human!” says Kreil.