A Day in the Life of an Investment Banking Analyst
“6:30 Sycophant drops by on his way out. Client meeting next Friday but wants complete turn of a pitch for first thing tomorrow morning (tomorrow morning = when he finally gets around to looking at it at some point next week). A quick calculation; there’s no way I’m getting out of here before four in the morning.”
-The Bitter Investment Banker Email
Ah, the life of an investment banking analyst. What will your hours be? How much work do you actually do? Is it true you play Solitaire most of the day and then only work at night?
Some days you’ll be so busy that you have to discreetly use a bottle under your desk if you need to go to the bathroom because you just don’t have time to go.
Other days you’ll have so little to do that you can take 3-hour lunch breaks and download different themes for Windows Solitaire.
Doing investment banking is like doing drugs: on your good trips you dance in clouds of marshmallows, surrounded by by beautiful women (or men, whatever you like) serving you fruit in canopies. On your bad trips you scratch your eyes out or jump off buildings.
This 24-hour period was a bad trip. And unlike The Bitter Investment Banker Email, it actually happened.
7:30 AM – I am woken up by an Associate at work asking where I am. He told me to come in at 8:00 AM to send out a status report. It’s 7:30 and I’m not there yet, so a cloud of panic has descended. I roll out of bed, shower for a minute and head into work.
8:00 AM – 9:00 AM – The Associate hands me a marked up version of the status report in question. Most of his changes consist of adding/deleting commas, capitalizing nouns or changing font sizes. I send it to our team at 8:55, in advance of our call at 9:00.
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Our investment banking team tells management about all the buyers who are interested in them and the meetings we’ve set up.
I am vaguely listening but also working on a pitch book for an IPO in the background – multi-tasking is easy when you paste Excel tables into PowerPoint and properly align them while listening to bankers ramble on.
12:30 PM – We send out a draft of the IPO pitch book to 3 Managing Directors who will be at the meeting the next day. This is the “final” version, which means that everything will be scrapped and re-done in the next 24 hours.
12:45 PM – One of the Managing Directors is traveling and has requested a Briefing Book on the IPO prospect in question because he doesn’t know anything about it. It’s not feasible to FedEx the book because he is 3,000 miles away and needs it ASAP – we need to PDF this bad boy.
1:00 PM – The Associate drops off revisions to a presentation we’re working on for another client. I tell him I’m working on a big IPO pitch for the next day as well. He tells me to finish by 5 so he can give me more changes and I can do another revision by the morning. It’s probably going to be an all-nighter.
1:30 PM – One of the Managing Directors who received the Briefing Book calls another Associate (Associate #2) on my team and yells at him for sending 100 pages of material – it’s taking 30 minutes to print out everything.
The Associate takes the brunt of the damage. I’ve cleverly avoided the fallout by having Associate #2 be the point person for this project.
3:00 PM – Starbucks. The lifeblood of investment banking analysts. I go with a friend who’s in the midst of private equity interviews and we discuss how those are going.
3:30 PM – After speaking with our research analyst (through compliance, thanks Elliot Spitzer) the Managing Director decides we need to add more analysis to our pitch and focus on completely different metrics. I need to re-do most of my work.
5:00 PM – I finish up with the other client presentation that Associate #1 wanted me to finish. Now it’s a waiting game on that one as I continue revising the IPO pitch.
7:30 PM – I’m eating dinner at my desk. No time to go join everyone else today but it’s Japanese food so I’m satisfied. Meanwhile someone from Equity Capital Markets, the team responsible for IPOs, comes over and tells me to scrap all the analysis the MD wanted.
10:00 PM – I get last-minute changes from everyone else on the team. Shouldn’t take too long to process, but production can probably only start printing at midnight, which means I’m going to be here until 1 AM minimum.
10:15 PM – As I’m going through changes, Associate #1 stops by and has a bunch of changes to the client presentation I finished at 5 PM. I tell him I can only get started at 1 AM so I probably won’t have anything until the next morning. “Dance, monkey.”
12:30 AM – I finish up and production starts printing the presentations. Associate #2 comes over to “supervise” the production and review the finished product.
1:00 AM – I notice an inconsistency on 1 slide – stock prices have been updated earlier in the presentation but not here. Time to check over everything again.
2:00 AM – We’re done re-checking every single page for the same mistake now. Time to re-print.
2:15 AM – The printers all have paper jams and are out of ink. Since it’s late, the printing/production crew has mysteriously disappeared. I am the production team.
2:15 – 3:30 AM – I need to refill the ink and fix all the printers. This requires a group effort so I call some other analysts over to help.
4:00 AM – Go home and go to sleep. I need to wake up by 6 to finish work on the presentation Associate #1 told me to “finish for this morning.”
6:00 AM – I’ve overslept. Associate #1 is already up and has left 3 voicemails on my cell phone asking why I haven’t sent the presentation to our client yet. I blackberry him that I was up all night working on another pitch and was going to send it by 9 but needed an hour of sleep first.
6:15 AM – 6:30 AM – As I’m coming into the office we’re trading angry emails back and forth. He says I should have emailed our entire group saying that the presentation would be late.
8:00 AM – Associate #1 strolls into the office just as I’m about to hit the “Send” button. I tell him this and show him the presentation. He tells me to email everyone twice – once to tell them that they’ll get the presentation in the next 2 minutes, and then once again to actually send the presentation.
I ignore him and just send the presentation.
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Tags: Bitter Investment Banking Email, finance industry, investment banker lifestyle, investment banking, investment banking analyst, investment banking jobs, investment banking sacrifice, pitch books
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These are some awesome posts. I always thought you had one of the greatest blogging styles. Good work, homes! This post had me r.o.t.f.l.o.l.
This looks like a particularly crappy day. I hope your best day has something to do with client interaction. My best days in banking were definitely when I could talk directly with CEOs and CFOs about their businesses. This is what banking can offer a young professional that few other jobs can – the opportunity to learn about various industries directly from the people who had built or led the client company.
Some other reactions:
8AM-9AM: It’s great to see that other analysts have wasted many a day “adding/deleting commas, capitalizing nouns or changing font sizes.” Actually, that’s just professional services for ya.
3:00PM: I always thought it was a bad habit to drink more than a couple cups of coffee each day. I think it’s especially true that once you start work in banking and pick up habits of coffee overload and not working out, it’s all over. You’ll be a fatass in no time!
3:30PM: Ain’t it great? Four years after Spitzer’s settlement, there are even fewer Sell ratings now. See link: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/wall-street-sell-ratings-even-scarcer.html. It makes me so angry how screwed up Wall Street is.
I enjoy the blog. Good content.
Just one question for you, how do you (analysts) respond when you have an associate above you who never had to go through the analyst years?
Also, make the links tou include popup in a separate window. Keeps traffic at your blog.
Shane, thanks for the comments and tips. I’ll go through and change these links today.
In terms of responding to Associates who haven’t been Analysts before, I think it depends greatly on the person – I’ve had some who are great and some who are terrible. Generally I am patient at first but if I see an Associate keeps trying to do unproductive things or is consistently bad, I will gently point it out by suggesting an alternative or saying something like, “Ok, I can do that but it will take xx hours. If we did this instead, it would take xx minutes. What do you think?”
In the worst case, if an Associate really does not improve and continues being terrible for months, I will bring it to the attention of someone even more senior. This has only happened to me once so far though.
according to a UCLA alumni I once spoke to, “the Investment Banking Analyst is nothing but a glorified pitch-book jockey”.
I guess he was right!
Yeah the Analyst really is a pitch book jockey. Stay tuned for my best 24 hour period… sometimes the Analyst monkey can actually rise above mere pitch books!
Still waiting on the best day, does it even exist?
AltESV: It’s on my to-do list.
I’ve gotten busier at work lately (well, until today) and have over 100 ideas for new articles but just haven’t had the time yet to write everything.
But since you asked, I’ll try to have this one ready for next week.
After reading this post, I am keen to find out if partying in New York is fairly common for an IB analyst. I know that they will not be going out every week… but how often do analysts go out for a good time??
maybe once or twice a month? i did not work in ny so not really sure
Worst day: Working under ex-consultant, changed to ibanker after mba (only been in ibanking 4 months) 9am – 2am reflecting/making/applying his “brainstorm”-ed ideas
Ex-consultants are the worst!
how does investment banking at a BB firm in NY compare to a regional office of the same BB firm? for example, would you work 100 hours/week if your an IB analyst at GS in Houston? and how does pay compare between new york and regional office of the same firm?
Pay is usually about the same. Honestly the hours might be a little better but it’s not going to be different by a huge amount… you’re still going to work a lot.
Hi Brian/M&I, I’ve been a silent reader for a while, and I’ve got one particular question that I haven’t yet found a satisfactory answer to. Most of the resources here focus on life as an Analyst – I am past that stage, but I’m interested in learning about life as an Associate. I understand Summer Associate = Summer Analyst but on a better stipend. But what is life like for an Associate at a BB? Hours/face time in particular, and weekends. How much time is spent on Excel, and how much is liaising between VPs and Analysts? Does it matter between different groups – DCM/ECM vs M&A? On a separate note, I understand you’re busy this year, but perhaps next year I may be a prospective client. Thanks.
Its honestly not that much different. Basically you are still the MDs’ bitch and have to do whatever they say, whenever they say it. Hours might be marginally better, but you’re still not going to have much of a life. There is less time spent on grunt work, but you have to deal with politics and coordinating stuff a lot more. I haven’t written much about it because it’s really not that different, especially at large banks – anyone at the entry-level is viewed as “disposable.”
Hi Brian, thank you for replying! Would it be correct to summarize it as Analysts have no life and no sleep, while Associates still have no life, but can at least get home before midnight?
You could say that, but if you have any interest in having a good lifestyle I would stay far away from anything in finance – even at the MD-level you’re not going to be able to spend much time with friends/family because you’re constantly traveling.
So to what time do you stay after an all nighter?
Depends. Might go home early, or you could stay late once again if there’s a lot of work to be done
So guys I am already an MBA in Finance with undergraduate in Computers looking for entry into investment banking field …. what would be best for me? Targetting Analyst or Associate position? I dont have any prior experience in this, I have exp in operations in manufacturing and analyst exp in wines and spirits industry. How do I get an entry into IB field??
If you already have an MBA you should be targeting Associate positions… I don’t know if you’re still in school or not, but if you’re already out I would go exclusively for boutiques. If you’re still in school and go to a top 10 program, use on-campus recruiting there and target all banks… if it’s not a top program you need to do a ton of networking instead.
I graduated in Aug 09 …. but i went to Baruch College, not one of the Ivys but 3rd best in nyc! I m currently working as a BA for an alcohol company but will like to enter investment banking before its too late I wont be able to leverage my MBA. Theres nothin in my resume which talks bout investment analysis exp, instead its all about financial analyst, creating excel models for finance and operations and operations exp.
What do you recommend I do? How can I convince the boutique ibanks that I can do this? Regarding networking, how should I go about it?
I really appreciate you taking time out and helping me out, thanks a lot.
You’ll have to do a lot of cold-calling to get in at this point (see all the networking articles/videos/podcasts on this site). To convince boutiques you can do the work, do some independent study, modeling seminars/programs, etc. and bring evidence to interviews.
Ok great, thanks for the info!
M&I, your post was very insightful because I am thinking of going into i-banking
but quick question….is it well worth it in the end…talking about sacrifices, money and all of that ?
Impossible to answer that question. I think you can learn a lot, but like anything else it gets repetitive after awhile. I stayed interested for the first year but after that wanted to pursue other things.