How to Enter Into a Futures Contract With My Products and More Questions and Answers
As you might expect, there are many questions about my new interview guide as well as all the usual topics this week.
Feedback has been very positive so far, so we’re thinking of expanding into other areas as well – details are below.
1. Your guide is really cheap right now, I was expecting at least $80+. Can I enter into a futures contract with you maturing on my payday to order the guide at the current price in case it goes up before then?
How about this: I’ll post something here when I’m about to change the price instead.
Although now that you bring it up, a derivatives business on future offerings could be lucrative…
2. Do you really need such a long page describing your guide? Shouldn’t it just sell itself?
I need a descriptive page for the following reasons:
- You need to know what you’re getting. Who would buy something with no information in hand? Even if you’re Bono I want to know something about your new album before buying it.
- Lots of new readers discover this site each day and they may not be familiar with me yet.
3. Why do all your prices end in 7?
It’s my lucky number.
4. Are you sure the brain teaser answer for that clock question is correct? I thought it was 217.5 degrees by looking at it…
Geometry class has been awhile for me too, but I’m fairly certain it’s correct since I checked everything multiple times and based questions on interview transcripts where possible.
If you do find a mistake let me know – I haven’t received any corrections yet, but no one’s perfect.
5. If I have suggestions for updates, can I send them to you?
Sure, please do. If there’s enough interest I may be releasing guides on other topics such as PE interviews, S&T interviews and networking.
If you know a lot about one of these topics or want to work on a guide with me (obviously I would pay you), let me know and we can work out an agreement.
6. How much “better” will your upcoming online courses be? What will the pricing be?
They have different purposes. This is intended to be a guide you review prior to interviews to refresh your knowledge and make sure you know everything.
The courses are a longer-term undertaking where you watch videos/audio, interact, ask us questions, etc.
We have not finalized pricing yet.
What to Do About Cancelled Offers
It happens to us all: cancelled offers are a dime a dozen these days, and no matter how good you are, you stand a chance of losing hard-earned offers. Here’s what to do if that happens.
7. Help! I was offered positions at prominent banks but they later cancelled the offers due to the market environment. Should I bring this up in interviews?
Yes, I would even list the cancelled offers on your resume. I recommended that anyone who had offers at Bear/Lehman/Merrill do the same to indicate they got the offer but couldn’t work there because of forces beyond their control.
8. In your new guide, you said to blame lack of a return offer on the market or to say that your office wasn’t hiring. But that sounds like too much of an excuse to me – shouldn’t I be more truthful?
These days that’s such a common story that you can say it very easily. Even if there’s a “truthful” reason you didn’t get an offer would you really want to tell them, “Oh, I didn’t get an offer because I’m lazy and don’t like to do work?”
I would stick to the market excuse and leave it at that.
9. If I did not receive a summer offer at my bank and didn’t get any offers in the fall, what do I do now? How can I find other opportunities?
With recruiting over at most business schools / undergraduates, you’ll have to rely on networking. But before you jump in blindly, you need to define what you want to do first.
If you want to get into banking eventually I would suggest corporate finance at a company or something similar as that will make it easiest to switch.
Consider all the normal networking ideas (alumni, friends, acquaintances, family friends, professors, etc. etc.) and anything creative you can come up with (leave no stone unturned).
10. The bulge bracket I interned at told me I would definitely get an offer, and then they decided to screw me over and not give me one, but I only found out recently. Should I go back to school and get a Master’s degree?
I would not do this, as a Master’s degree won’t help much when searching for other opportunities. It’s probably best to keep searching and expand the set of companies you’re looking at.
Contrary to what some think, you can’t start as an Associate with just a Master’s in Finance.
Investment Banking Offers
Ok, it’s not as bleak as the media would have you believe. There are people still getting offers, as we’ll see below.
11. I just signed on to start at a top boutique next year. What should I do to prepare?
I would suggest the following:
- Buy a plane ticket to Thailand.
- Sit on the beach for a long time.
- Go party at night.
- Repeat the above until you’re exhausted.
12. Help! I got internship offers at 3 top bulge bracket banks but can’t decide which one to pick and need to give an answer soon!
Wow, don’t we all wish we had your problems? I’m surprised you didn’t ask about that $20MM inheritance you just received and what to do with it…
Anyway, I would pick the one where you like the people/the group the most. If any gave you a specific group assignment, try for those. It’s easier to end up in a bad group if you’re in the generalist pool.
13. I have a chance to work at a PE firm this summer, but haven’t gone through banking recruiting yet – which one is better for a summer internship?
If I were you I would just take the PE offer now and guarantee yourself something for the summer. For full-time I recommend starting out in banking, but for summer internships it doesn’t matter as much as it’s easy to go to either one after an internship.
14. I’m a corporate lawyer who recently got an offer to start at a bank early next year. I know you say I should go to Thailand instead of trying to prepare, but I’m nervous because I know nothing about finance…
Maybe you can read an accounting or finance textbook but I wouldn’t go beyond that. If you were already working as a lawyer, you probably haven’t had fun in a really long time so you should read the books while you’re on the beach in Thailand.
Real-Life Questions
A new addition to Q&A, these questions come from readers I’ve been meeting with here in Asia.
15. You’re younger than I thought! I thought you were a 50-year old MD!
I don’t understand where you got this one from. Do MDs even read/write blogs? Ok, I guess at least one does…
16. What is it like doing finance in Japan/China/Hong Kong vs. the US?
I can’t answer directly because I was in another industry when I lived there before. I’ll see if I can find someone with experience who can give thoughtful comments.
17. Why are you so secretive?
Well, obviously I had to be anonymous when I first started unless I wanted to get fired. I’ll release more information next year.
18. So, what are you doing here? Are you considering moving here?
I’m visiting friends and some business partners. I may actually be moving here to expand in 2009 but haven’t decided quite yet.
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In regards to the angle question, those that are saying it is 217.5 degrees (I was one who posted that in comments on the initial thread), that is the complementary angle to the 142.5. 142.5 + 217.5 = 360, a.k.a. a circle. You must be talking about the top angle, and we must be talking about the bottom angle. Looks like we’re both correct!
Yeah I just realized that too.
You mentioned in your last article that you were once considering hedge fund offers. My school has maybe one or two hedge fund internships listed on our recruiting page. What funds are you aware of that have intern programs? Many thanks.
Hmm, I’m not sure about intern programs specifically but the one I know of that recruits at undergrad level a lot is Jump Trading in Chicago. Others that I think have internships: Jane Street Capital, DE Shaw, Citadel… at least those were the ones that recruited at my school.
A lot of these are prop trading more than hedge funds but in many cases they’re almost the same.
To corroborate with Inquisitor, I will personally say that I have recently received an email from Jane Street Capital asking me to schedule a phone interview for one of their summer internship positions this coming summer.
I sure do wish that the economy would follow your advice: (1) Buy a plane ticket to Thailand; and (2) Sit on the beach for a (very) long time.
Anyhow, I might land a job (and contribute to GDP) by next week–only competing against three other people now.
Side note: I’m sure that your readership will surpass 1MM one day. Keep up the great work.
I don’t think there are 1MM people interested in finance, and only 1-2 blogs in the world have over 1MM readers but thanks. Good luck with your interviews.
Re: question one – technically that would be a forward contract, as a futures contract is traded on exchanges and always marked to market.
Once again, my lack of knowledge re: trading comes to light…
I recently received an offer for the Shanghai office of a small but successful boutique investment bank that has offices in NYC, Europe and now China. I have extensive experience in China and am considering taking this offer (it’s my only finance job offer). I’m just curious what you think the exit opportunities would be from a job like this a couple years down the road–particularly if I’m trying to come back to the US. I will likely be working very closely with one of the 10 or so MD’s.
Experience won’t translate as well to the US as working in, say, NYC/LA/SF would. It will better prepare you for other stuff in HK or China but not as good if you want to switch to another region.
That said, anything is possible and especially if the economy gets better and China remains hot, you should be in a good position.
I have internship offers to work in either marketing or finance for a large corporation. Is picking finance a no-brainer in terms of future opportunities?
I mean, it depends what you want. Marketing can certainly be helpful but if you want to do banking/PE/HFs, then yeah, definitely do finance.
If you want to go the business school route, either one works… I know some marketing people at HBS and other top schools right now.
Do investment banks try and avoid hiring students involved in ROTC? Obviously there’s the possibility of being called up at any time which definitely gets in the way of output, but then again it’s also a big plus for building leadership. What do you think?
I’ve never heard of that happening. In fact, banks recruit tons of ex-military guys, there were a bunch at my office.
I think it’s a big plus and it shouldn’t hurt much for internships because the probability of getting called up during those 2-3 months is relatively low.
See the key point there I think is “ex-military”. I would have a 4-year term of service after graduation, but I’m also shooting for analyst so they overlap is what I’m worried about.
Oh that will be tough until after you’ve finished the term of service… I don’t know of anyone offhand who did that.
Is there any way you could postpone or reschedule it?
I’m not entirely sure if that’s possible, but since I’d be a reservist, I would only be called up maybe once or twice a month for a few days each time.
On a separate note, why can we not use DCFs on financial institutions such as banks? (I got your guide btw…good stuff)
Mostly because working capital is a huge part of banks’ balance sheets and so it’s different from normal companies where it’s just an afterthought… that severely skews a DCF so it doesn’t make much sense. I didn’t go into detail on it, but a dividend discount model where you’re valuing a bank based on discounted dividends in the future is more commonly used.