Daily Schedule

Meetings

As with in any workplace, meetings are held to update everyone on what’s going on. In the financial industry, morning meetings before market-open are common on both the buyside and the sellside to update everyone on market news and developments. While the news and information presented in the meeting might not be directly relevant to everyone attending the meeting, it is often a good idea to have an awareness of what is going on outside of a narrow area of expertise. Let’s take for example a morning meeting about equity markets. On the sellside, it might bring up news on corporate events and economic news to prepare traders for the upcoming trading day and things to watch out for. On the buyside, this might be a meeting to bring up corporate events and how they affect existing investments or present opportunity for potential investments. Other meetings might include those to plan for conferences, events, investor presentations, etc.

Emails

Emails are both a wonder and pain of the workplace. On the upside, they allow relatively efficient communication between coworkers, clients, and trading counterparties. They also serve as a valuable source of information for investors, bankers, and traders subscribed to listservs. On the downside, they can get overwhelming in sheer number and hard to organize. It is a work in progress.

Calls

Calls can range from communication with potential investors, calling traders to clarify a trading issue or detail, calling investor relations of corporations, to calling research analysts to get a perspective on a company or sector. Emails are convenient, but sometimes we just need to pick up a phone and actually talk to someone.

Tasks

There’s a good reason why Michael Bloomberg is rich. The Bloomberg terminal is the basic source of information for the entire financial industry. If you need to look up anything about a company - its equity, bonds, charts, shareholders, news, corporate events, filings, etc - you use a Bloomberg terminal. It also provides messaging services between traders and investors as well as other chat groups that discuss market developments.

Trading Software

There are various trading platforms that traders use, which can be different depending on asset class. These are the tools that allow traders to actually execute trades. There is software that allows electronic trading or direct trading with brokers. Some hedge funds event create their own trading software.

Excel

Excel is the foremost tool for collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. Traders building models in excel to track their portfolios, exposures to certain risks, and to analyze trading opportunities. Bankers and researchers use excel to build valuation and transaction models.

Powerpoint

Powerpoint is the basis for any kind of presentation. Widely used in client meetings, sales meetings, investor conferences, banker presentations, they provide the standard format for presenting information in a precise, visually appealing way.

Interactions

Meetings

Meetings in the other sense, not as a daily task, provide opportunities to catch up and learn from coworkers. Outside of typical morning meetings, there are also ones between portfolio managers and research analysts to discuss certain investments. They occur between investment teams and sales teams to update on investment performance and discuss how to reach new clients. On the sellside, they occur between researchers and traders to discuss market trends. Note that researchers and traders cannot meet with investment bankers where an exchange of workplace information occurs due to bankers being on the private side and having access to material nonpublic information. Of course being is friends is fine, but just be aware of regulatory rules to watch out for.

Events

On the sellside, notable events might include conferences hosted by banks for certain industries. Research analysts might hold lunches for investors to build his reputation and reach. Sellside salespeople and traders might entertain buyside investors and traders to encourage them to do business with the sellside firm. Bankers will also hold events to entertain their corporate clients. Buyside firms might hold events to entertain and update their investor client base. Other events can be held by teams, divisions, or firmwide.

Workflow

The workflow is highly dependent on the line of business. Trader workflow depends on market volatility - the more volatile or chaotic the market, generally the more people doing trading, compared to a calm market. Investment banking workflow depends on M&A activity and how much business is brought in. These deals come in bursts, which can make work schedules unpredictable. Research analysts’ workflow come and go roughly with earnings season - U.S. companies typically report earnings quarterly. Buyside workflow depends on when investment opportunities present themselves.

Review

The workplace is dynamic and varied across industries. Even within the financial industry, work is very different depending on the jobs, firms, and teams you are on. This is just a summary of common things you will encounter in the industry, but far short of everything you will explore. It is just good to manage expectations about what work will be like, so you choose what is best for you!