Taming the Recruiter Beast: 5 Tips to Preserve Your Sanity and Land You a Job

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Damn, It Does NOT Feel Good To Be A Banker: Investment Banking Apocalypse

For those who weren’t paying attention over the weekend, top government officials in China and the US reached an agreement whereby China has agreed to acquire all outstanding stock of the United States at $1.00 per share, with an implied valuation of $1 trillion.

Although the US GDP is close to $14 trillion on paper, analysts have said that extreme exposure to subprime mortgages and a failing financial system pushed its value down to only $500 billion. China made a last-minute rescue, acquiring the country at a 100% premium.

(This is a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a headline like this soon.)

Ok, so in case you were on vacation, Lehman and Merrill both failed over the weekend, and the US financial system continues its descent into bankruptcy as banks and hedge funds spiral into a bottomless abyss.

So what can you do about it?

2008 Investment Banking Analyst Bonuses: I Told You So

Around a month ago when bonus discussions were heating up, I took a different approach from most others and looked at each bank’s…. investment banking revenue.

Based on this analysis, I concluded that bonuses would be down 20-30% overall:

“…But if I had to guess, I’d say that bonuses will be down 20-30% overall. Something in the range of $60-75K for 1st Year Analysts’ top bonus seems reasonable.”

So I don’t see why anyone (at least anyone who read the post) was particularly surprised at the outcome: top bonuses for 1st Year Analysts were indeed in that range.