@rajatb/bizskool..i tried going through derivatives book by hull...but can hardly make any sense outa that....i was planning to start lukin 4 a new job by may 1st week at the latest. currently i'm done with regression and correlation on the quant side and financial statements,cost of capital and capital budgeting on the corporate finance side. and at my workplace ive developed a market model and have done a few exploratory analysis in SAS. what do u guys think i cud do in addtion to all this to myself suitable 4 applyin to good banks?????

Thanks

Hull book wont make sense until you go thru prerequisite courses of Financial mgmt and financial analysis, managerial finance, Investment banking, portfolio management and mutual/other funds. Derivatives is a final term MBA course ppl take after covering all courses mentioned above. start with Prasanna chandra/van horne on FM and then progress gradually.

SAS certification in business (module 1 in abt 3 months) folowed by SAS Financial cert (1 year+ goal) will help you in future to rise in financial analytics field.

Keep reading eco times, outlook money, WSJ and similar newspapers/magazines. keep track of finance world. scout websites of top 10 IB's and banks to get a hang of different offerings and markets they operate.

It will be a gradual buildup process. In due course finish for CFA (US) Level-2 by 2008 end or so.

@rajatb/bizskool..i tried going through derivatives book by hull...but can hardly make any sense outa that....i was planning to start lukin 4 a new job by may 1st week at the latest. currently i'm done with regression and correlation on the quant side and financial statements,cost of capital and capital budgeting on the corporate finance side. and at my workplace ive developed a market model and have done a few exploratory analysis in SAS. what do u guys think i cud do in addtion to all this to myself suitable 4 applyin to good banks?????

Thanks

Hi..im a bcom(H) graduate with no work ex ...have applied to verious bschools for mba...as of now i have nothing on hand..so wanted to learn some software application..which wud be relevant to finance(my chosen field)...can anyone suggest?

Hi everyone,
This is my first msg on this forum. I am a economics graduate currently working in a reputed organisation in Kolkata. However my interest lies in the field of finance. Can ne1 help me out with the necessary qualifications required for being an analyst. I have heard that I-Banks puts a lot of importance on quant skills. Would it be better for me to go for a quant related course. If yes then what type of distance courses are available ?

thanks!

Yes, i second. A CFA (US) will make it easier. There are other qualifications like FRM (GARP) and similar.

Hi everyone,
This is my first msg on this forum. I am a economics graduate currently working in a reputed organisation in Kolkata. However my interest lies in the field of finance. Can ne1 help me out with the necessary qualifications required for being an analyst. I have heard that I-Banks puts a lot of importance on quant skills. Would it be better for me to go for a quant related course. If yes then what type of distance courses are available ?

thanks!

You can straightaway make an entry into an IB as an Analyst by preparing some Quant topics and tweaking ur resume to show suitability.

However a CFA certification can make matters easy..

Besides try to collect material related to Investment Banks form internet..

Hi everyone,
This is my first msg on this forum. I am a economics graduate currently working in a reputed organisation in Kolkata. However my interest lies in the field of finance. Can ne1 help me out with the necessary qualifications required for being an analyst. I have heard that I-Banks puts a lot of importance on quant skills. Would it be better for me to go for a quant related course. If yes then what type of distance courses are available ?

thanks!

bUDDY ...
can u throw some light on the type of entry job a person can make in Investment Banking ????

Depends on qualification and school you are hired from. Ppl from IIT Masters/SOM's, IISc, ISI get the model development/tweaking and testing job helping their counterparts in US (typically from HBS, stanford, Wharton, UIUC/UCB MS fin etc). Typically KPO's with nalytics businesses. Decent salary 7-12 LPA or more.

Top grads from IIMs get the trading/modelling jobs and research desks in US/UK postings from Lehmann, Goldman, Bear etc with the crore+ salaries you see in media.

Lesser schools like from ICFAI, SPJ or others get in to initial (copy paste) model testing with data provided, managing/updating portfolio info only (not building). Running/updating different excel sheets. some research from different sources like bloomberg, S&P; databases and feeding data to models. Some have splz roles of researching and analyzing MBS, strips, instruments etc. Once these students get a hold and get additional qual like CFA (AIMR)/FRM etc they rise thru the ranks.

Many Mortgage co.s/FI's like Ocwen, fidelity, First Indian hire for analytics and domain knoledge of US financial mkts esp focussed on Mortgage Backed securities. Mortgage and real estate is the largest vertical with 2 tn USD.

A good domain knowledge of US fin mkts helps.

bUDDY ...
can u throw some light on the type of entry job a person can make in Investment Banking ????

Many Mortgage co.s/FI's like Ocwen, fidelity, First Indian hire for analytics and domain knoledge of US financial mkts esp focussed on Mortgage Backed securities. Mortgage and real estate is the largest vertical with 2 tn USD.

A good domain knowledge of US fin mkts helps.

I will suggest you read the insider guides to careers in Investment Banking by Wetfeet and Vault. They will giv u a better idea of whether to pursue IB and alo some tips for initial prep.

Besides, the book Fast Track by Mariam Naficy also provides good insights into Management Consulting, Sales and Tradin and Investment Banking...

Although the guides by wetfeet and Vault are very good they are biased towards the M&A; side of the business the Quant side of I Banking has evolved inly in the last 10 years and so is not covered that well in these guides.

See the attached for the kind of work a Quant does.

I agree to what subodh said, Vault Notes for IB would be sufficient at this stage, from where you can gather basics of I Banking.
All these offices which rajat quoted, are in diverse processes, and are expanding. It was a different scene altogether a couple of years back. When the operations were more like a KPO. Now {AFAIK for BofA}, private information has started flowing in, and few of the processes like Loan Syndication and Global Portfolio Management, take active part in deal teams.

Vault notes for IB would definately help you understand things at this stage.

live.work.play Says

that is really helpful thanks a lot rajat.. i thought concepts of financial statements wud be useful nd helpful...but nw gotto cover up quant as well..btw which book by hull r u rfrin 2...?

I will suggest you read the insider guides to careers in Investment Banking by Wetfeet and Vault. They will giv u a better idea of whether to pursue IB and alo some tips for initial prep.

Besides, the book Fast Track by Mariam Naficy also provides good insights into Management Consulting, Sales and Tradin and Investment Banking...

live.work.play Says

that is really helpful thanks a lot rajat.. i thought concepts of financial statements wud be useful nd helpful...but nw gotto cover up quant as well..btw which book by hull r u rfrin 2...?

Amazon.com: Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (4th Edition): Books: John C. Hull

The Indian Edition is for some 200-300 types.

Mostly concepts related to Stats-Hypothesis testis,VaR,Different distributions and their properties.
Properly do the Quant part of the CFA L1 course.

Apart from that read up the first 7-8 chapters of Hull to understand the basics of Black Scholes ,do more if you are able to master the concepts.

This is just the basic part the trick is to prepare extensively for the particular profile once you get shortlisted .
For example if you get Shortlisted for the profile of a Commodities Analyst then read up throughly on the unique aspects of commodity linked products.

Apart from that brush up ur Engg level maths esp courses in Numerical methods,Optimization etc..

that is really helpful thanks a lot rajat.. i thought concepts of financial statements wud be useful nd helpful...but nw gotto cover up quant as well..btw which book by hull r u rfrin 2...?

I want to know any information about the "International College for FInancial planning" in delhi. Any information related to CAT score required for it or other ways to get in. Any other information which u people feel i helpful.

Thx 4 the info rajat. Hw do HSBC and yes bank fare in this category? and incase i wish to apply to any of these banks before appearing for CFA L1 wat r the concepts i need to be familiar with?

Thanks

Mostly concepts related to Stats-Hypothesis testis,VaR,Different distributions and their properties.
Properly do the Quant part of the CFA L1 course.

Apart from that read up the first 7-8 chapters of Hull to understand the basics of Black Scholes ,do more if you are able to master the concepts.

This is just the basic part the trick is to prepare extensively for the particular profile once you get shortlisted .
For example if you get Shortlisted for the profile of a Commodities Analyst then read up throughly on the unique aspects of commodity linked products.

Apart from that brush up ur Engg level maths esp courses in Numerical methods,Optimization etc..

Thx bizskool...actually i wantd to apply when these banks go for a mass recruitment..ive heard goldman sachs took a number of ppl last year in oct.....do u have an idea whr from can i know when dese ppl hire in huge nos??? i dunno if they mention smthin on their website....

Thanks

Yea bank has minimal ops in India. Plus its a bank and not much of an IB. HSBC has BPO (lower end) and Analytics(hi-end) KPO in India. For KPO they do hire from IIT's/SOM etc.

Most of the I Banks now have KPO operations in India.

Morgan Stanley -MSAS-Mumbai
Duetsche Bank-GMC-Mumbai
Banc of America-BOA Continium Mumbai
Goldman Sachs-Banglore
Lehman Brothers-Mumbai
Thomas Weisel -Mumbai

All of them have outsourced a lot if their Quant profiles in India.The only problem that I see at your end is that although these banks hire from premier B School ans far as non MBA's are concerned they have restricted themselves to IIT grads at present.
But I guess by passing the CFA L1 and packaging yourself really well you could get into one of them esp Morgan Stanley which is doing a lot of Risk management work where your statistical skills will become useful.

Thx 4 the info rajat. Hw do HSBC and yes bank fare in this category? and incase i wish to apply to any of these banks before appearing for CFA L1 wat r the concepts i need to be familiar with?

Thanks

Hi,

i'm an engineer passed outa PEC in 2006. i'm currently working in a KPO for the last one year and have decent experience in SAS. Also, i would be appearing for CFA L1 in dec 2007 but now i desperately want to move into a bank. What i understand is that based on my qualification and exp. i wont directly get into Investment banking but i guess i can start as an analyst in some global IB. what i really dont want to do in a bank is data preparation and data warehousing. ive heard that most of the banks in bangalore and calcutta have only BPO operations with only data warehousing and data preparation and no real analysis happening can smbdy throw some light on it and can smbdy name a few banks which have their analytics operations in india nd in which i can try?

thanks

Most of the I Banks now have KPO operations in India.

Morgan Stanley -MSAS-Mumbai
Duetsche Bank-GMC-Mumbai
Banc of America-BOA Continium Mumbai
Goldman Sachs-Banglore
Lehman Brothers-Mumbai
Thomas Weisel -Mumbai

All of them have outsourced a lot if their Quant profiles in India.The only problem that I see at your end is that although these banks hire from premier B School ans far as non MBA's are concerned they have restricted themselves to IIT grads at present.
But I guess by passing the CFA L1 and packaging yourself really well you could get into one of them esp Morgan Stanley which is doing a lot of Risk management work where your statistical skills will become useful.