what’s up everyone kenji here and in this CashNews.co i thought i’d share five career paths in Finance now i realized that quite a lot of people
don’t really seem to understand the differences between Investment Banking and trading or Equity research and other sort of Finance
related roles so in this CashNews.co i’m gonna try my best to explain those and hopefully you can decide what’s most suited to you so the five that i’ve picked are Financial Planning and analysis trading Investment Banking Equity
research and financial audit and i’ll mainly be focusing on these roles for entry level as well as maybe one two years down the line too so i’ll be discussing the work life balance the pay as well as the skills required and with that i’m also gonna provide examples of companies in
each career path and obviously this is just five positions right this is by no means a complete list but if this CashNews.co does well i will consider making a part two covering some other things like what might be private banking commercial banking as well as quants and other things like that
i’ve also made a similar CashNews.co on business career paths if you want to check that out i’ll leave it in the description but for now let’s jump into this one so the first one is fp a which stands for Financial Planning and analysis and this basically has to do
with Forecasting and Budgeting a company’s Finances so things like what will our Revenue look like in three years
time what about our net Income or how much money should we allocate to the marketing team how much should we pay our employees other things like that will typically be solved by the fbi team and i do want to clarify that fp a isn’t necessarily for href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance
years time or something like that and then the fpa team is going to be in charge of actually implementing certain policies so that that can actually be achieved and for this kind of a role you can either get hired fresh out of college like some of my friends have or you can spend a couple years
working say at a big four or something like that and then make the switch for the skills required it’s mainly got to do with excel work so spreadsheets secondly Finance
and Accounting obviously as well as some strategy too so you know where the company might be heading towards ray as for the work hours i’d say from 50 to 60 is more or less the average so it’s nothing say exaggerated it is a good amount of work though there’s
obviously some peak seasons right so typically when the year ends that’s when the account closes and obviously you need to work slightly more during that period right as for the pay it obviously varies depending on location right the thing with fpa is that it’s such a broad thing that
it can either be you can be working in fpa at the local hotel or you can be working in fpna at apple right which is obviously going to pay you a lot more but i’d say a typical range in a say a big u.s city could be something like 60 to 90 000 us dollars the second one has to do with that of a
trader which basically entails buying and selling Securities so these might be things like stocks and Bonds or more complex things like what might be options Futures swaps or other derivatives like that now typically for the dynamics of this
it’s either you trade your your money or your company’s money or you can also trade on behalf of clients now the job is known to be quite stressful and that’s mainly because you’re dealing with money right and that money goes up just like it goes down sometimes which can be
very unpredictable and stressful for some people also you’re constantly measured on your performance right it’s very obvious to tell if you’re winning or losing money because all you have to do is look at your account as for the hours it’s usually around 60 hours a week
basically the most intense hours are when the Markets open in the u.s i believe that’s around from nine to four thirty and before that and after that you’re basically gonna be
planning doing some research and getting ready for the market open time right some of the big skills required for this kind of a role is being good with numbers being really a fast thinker fast decision maker in that sense because you can win and lose money in just a couple seconds and then thirdly
has to do with being relatively unemotional right it’s obviously going to help your decision making too also you usually need a license to become a trader and in the us at least that’s typically through the series 7 exam now most of the cases the company that you’re employed at
will usually pay for the course work as well as well as the test as for the salary it really varies hugely here that’s primarily because some people make tons of money and through bonuses and other things like that they might be able to really increase that whilst others just don’t make
that much maybe they’re not as good at trading right but i’d say a good estimate for the big financial cities is around 70 to 100 000 and some of the companies with entry-level trader roles include the investment monks oil and gas companies as well as the big asset managers like
blackrock or vanguard as well and i’ll leave this article linked as well where a trader basically goes through his day in the life if you’re interested now the next path is Investment Banking and this is definitely one of the most popular ones out there so let me
briefly explain what they do and at its core it’s really two main things number one has to do with financing which is basically raising money for companies so for instance that might be through stocks like airbnb’s recent ipo or through Bonds like apple recently selling
14 billion worth of Bonds where the investment bank helps out in the process right then on the other hand you have what is called advisory which basically has to do with advising companies on financially related matters right a common example here has to do with
Mergers and acquisitions and an example of that happening in real life has to do with say amazon buying mgm recently for around 8.5 billion the job is highly deal oriented which basically means that you have to work very long hours in order to meet the deadlines of those deals
right and sometimes they can also be quite unpredictable so i’d say an average week could be around the 80 hour mark which is definitely a lot more than your average brain that said you do get compensated quite a lot typically in a big u.s city like say new york you’d probably start
with a base salary of around 85 000 and then the bonus depending on performance it is quite high it can reach something like 50 000 or so in performance as well as for the skills required for the job it mainly has to do with financial Accounting and corporate href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance
being a good presenter obviously starts taking more of an importance as well and i’ll leave this resource linked in the description as well which basically goes over the day in the life of an analyst i did make a day in the life CashNews.co myself as i was working at goldman sachs in their
Investment Banking division as an intern if you want to check that out i’ll leave a link as well the next role is Equity research and this one basically has to do with producing reports as well as recommendations on investment opportunities for clients now i
do realize that this does get a bit confusing in that within investment banks there are Equity research teams and there are also traders within an investment too and the reality is that investment banks are so big nowadays that they actually have a lot of different divisions some
of which do overlap with some of the roles that i’m talking about here today so i can understand why some people might get a bit confused on that so apologies for that in advance but at its core Equity research is about whether you should buy hold or sell a particular
investment now these Investments could be stocks which is the case most of the time or it can also be Bonds funds or other instruments like that and here’s an example of what that report might look like this one’s from morgan stanley’s research
team as they analyze apple and give an estimate of a price target right and as you can take a look here it is quite extensive it is quite detailed i mean it’s quite a long document i’ll leave it in the description just in case you’re interested too so you can take a closer look i
did find this one online for free on the internet so you can definitely find a lot more too as for the work hours unlike Investment Banking Equity research isn’t so deal oriented so typically you do have quite a bit of a structure in that say you’re
giving a set number of companies that you should be researching and based on that you’re obviously gonna know when each one’s coming up with new Financial Statements and other things like that right so there’s no surprises in the same way right so i’d say
around 60 to 70 hours a week it’s quite normal it is still more than your average work but they do get paid fairly well i’d say around 85 000 as the base salary just like Investment Banking but the bonus is typically slightly less even though it can still reach 100 000
plus as for the skills required it is quite technical so you do need a good knowledge of statistics economics Finance and Accounting and other things like
that it is also important to know how to write as you can obviously see by the by the reports that i showed you earlier and in addition to that people are typically somewhat knowledgeable with some programming languages like what might be sql or vba too also the cfa which is short for chartered
financial analyst is a common designation for Equity research as well and i’ll leave this article going over a day in the life in Equity research as well if you’re interested so this brings us to our final path which is financial audit that’s
basically got to do with verifying the accuracy of the Financial Statements of a company so it’s really about investigating whether there’s potentially any errors or even fraud somewhere in there this can either be in the form of an internal auditor or an external
auditor internal auditor basically means that you’re employed by the company that you owed it so for example i could be employed by coca-cola not be auditing coca-cola’s Financial Statements internally right and then on the other hand you have external auditors which
are typically the big four you’ve probably already heard of them and you go around auditing different companies out there so typically you might spend say two to three weeks in a particular company auditing their accounts and then move on to the next company and so on and so forth it’s
actually what i did myself for a summer at pwc for instance also while at the job auditors do work towards a designation known as the cpa which stands for the certified public accountant in the us at least and usually as for the work hours it’s typically around 60 hours a week something along
those lines it does peak it does go slightly higher in the winter months which is basically when the companies are closing all of their accounts so it does get slightly busier obviously as for the pay i’d say it’s around 60 to 70 000 us dollars a year in the big financial cities and
then lastly looking at the skill set this mainly has to do with obviously Finance and Accounting and then some excel work even though that’s not that
heavy on the end as well as some more presentation and other skills like that especially as you move further down the road so those are five i do realize that there’s a ton of other none;">Finance roles out there which i’d like to cover at some point maybe in a part 2 if this CashNews.co does well so make sure you hit that like and subscribe button do comment down below if there’s any particular position that you’d like me to cover though
that’s all for this CashNews.co i hope you enjoyed it and i’ll catch you in the next one you
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for the trader Job you will need the Series 57, for the Investment banking job you will need the Series 79. all the rest you should be fine getting the Series 7 Exam..
Wow he’s very good looking 👌🏻👍🏻
Want good money and work life balance….. get into internal auditing for public companies (obviously there might be some that might have high hours but most tend to not have them).
anyone from india thinks kenji looks exactly like dhruv rathee..??
Put a rainbow or LGBT flag in your profile photo and your investments will gain value.
Please do for mba gap students😢😢😢😢
Big ups to everyone working effortlessly trying to earn a living while building wealth. My wife and I we are both retired with over $2 million in net worth and all paid off debts. living smart and frugal with our money, made it possible for us this early, even till now we earn passively with our asset coach.
Adapt to a lifestyle, be thrifty, set a budget, save money and build more streams.
Pls can Bi -tech be studied at undergraduate
Is the CFA a desired designation even for other fields than equity research?
Let's hit private equity a little bit on pt 2
Have we normalized working 60+ hours in this country? I don't want to work more than 50 hours per week.
This was really informative and delivered brilliantly, thank you ver much for sharing !👏
60 hours a week??? I thought all y’all did a 9-5
60 hours a week! How do you Americans have a life?
I want to do investment banking at Goldman Sachs but too bad I go to a non target 😢
Highschool diploma. Work your way up in retail banking. Become a senior FA or branch manager. Make $100K/yr. The idea one needs an expensive, "target school" degree is complete bullshit. No? Then earn a degree from a local, inexpensive university and go work in wealth management. Obtain your CFP designation. I know guys <40 who are making $350K/yr and work <30 hours a week. The IB crowd doesn't understand that you will be working 100 hrs/week for shitty pay. Unless you're a Harvard grad, I'd stay away from IB.
60 hrs a week.. thank you, next!
60 hrs a week.. thank you, next!
Hello Kenji… I just want to know that if some one has not a bid academic background but has self taught about all the skills that required for investment banking… Then is there any chance to get there?
Hey Kenji! I appreciate this so much, it's certainly helping me choose a path. Would you have tips on how to build finance skills while still being a student?
Do I really need to be good at math?
So 12 hours hours a day? Lmao yeah uhh…
Hi Kenji, I just graduated in an investment degree last year and I genuinely don't know what career path to pursue in this industry. I enjoy the stock market and learning about the mechanics and technicalities of how it works, but I enjoy interacting with people. I don't know what career path I can pursue that incorporates some degree of both 😢