I’m sure you’ve seen the (overly) dramatic headlines on CNBC:
Investors Gearing Up for Earnings Season
Earnings Season Kicks Off Tomorrow
Earnings Alert: AAPL Misses, Stock Off 10%
Reporters and purveyors of financial entertainment television love earnings season. It’s a time when a lot of new information hits the market and there are a lot of earnings misses and beats and after hours stock moves.
As an analyst, it’s like trying to drink water from a fire hose.
Today we learn all about earnings season and what it means for both the sell side analyst (associate) and the buy side analyst. We’re going to discuss:
- What exactly does “earnings season” mean and when is it?
- What does earnings season mean for the sell side analyst?
- What does earnings season mean for the buy side analyst?
- Can you use earnings season to break into Wall Street?
Ready? Time to release the fire hose …
[continue reading…]
We all know people on Wall Street, especially hedge fund managers, make a lot of money. But how do you break into this opulent world of yachts, parties, and bottle service if you don’t attend a target university?
When it comes to breaking into Wall Street, there is a well-known formula that is guaranteed to work:
- Attend a target university.
- Network, network, network.
- Ace your interviews.
This is the widely accepted path to landing a career in finance on Wall Street, whether you are looking at investment banking, hedge funds, asset management, or anything else where your compensation is sure to pique a protestor’s interest.
But what if you don’t have a target school on your résumé? Do you really need #1 above if you are a rock star at #2 and #3?
I set out to answer this question by studying the backgrounds of the 25 highest paid hedge funds managers. These men (sorry ladies, they are all men – I can only hope an LBS reader breaks through that ceiling one day) are the true BSDs of Wall Street. They are the masters of the universe that take home more pay than the GDP of some small countries. They are outliers. We can learn from outliers.
Among the findings:
- Target school degrees do matter, but not all target schools are created equal (Harvard, I’m looking at you).
- The MBA vs. No MBA dilemma is finally solved (just kidding, the results are muddier than ever).
- How the 10-year rule and the role of deliberate practice can make you a finance expert.
- Having a mentor might be the most important key to outlier success.
Let’s dig in and analyze the findings further …
[continue reading…]
