Hedge Fund or Trading for Bulge Bracket?
I'm 22 and trying to start my career in finance. I just got an offer today for an Investment Associate position (basically an analyst position) with Bridgewater Associates. I've been very impressed by their people and don't think it'd be a bad decision to sign with them immediately. That said, I believe it is reasonably likely that I will get an offer from Morgan Stanley S&T (trading side on either equities or equity derivatives desk) for their analyst role within the next 24 hours.
My question is, what factors should I consider in deciding which offer to take, assuming I get the MS offer? Is one clearly >> the other, or will it depend on my interests/career objectives? What are the advantages of either? Comp will likely be similar, and is not of particular relevance to me.
If you have not heard of Bridgewater, please do not tell me to go to MS because of prestige; both firms are extremely prestigious, although the number of people who know of Bridgewater is smaller.
One thing you may have to worry about if you decide to go with Bridgewater is the potential pigeonholing into a very specific sector. That said, I would go Bridgewater all the way, it's a top-notch hedge fund with very clever people.
What kind of exit opportunities does having Bridgewater on my resume give me?
Go to MS
Depends what desk you end up on at MS. If its equities (dying area) I'd go with Bridgewater. Depends on your personal choice actually, corp finance and S&T are two different ball games.
alternative investments are hot. i think you'd get great buy-side exit opps after Bridgewater. if you were getting corp fin analyst at MS, then it'd be more debatable, i'd say.
Go Bridgewater
You do not want to be doing equities on the sell side. The spreads are next to nothing. As a previous poster mentioned, if you were debating between banking at MS and Bridgewater, it might be more of a toss-up assuming you weren't dead set on trading. But MS is definitely not the force in trading that it is in banking, and equities on the sell side is not a good place to be.
With respect to Bridgewater, one thing to keep in mind is that they are not exclusively a hedge fund. In fact, the vast majority of their AUM is in more traditional, mutual-fund like strategies. While total AUM is at around $150B, hedge fund AUM is apparently in the neighborhood of $20B. Thus, you may end up working on more traditional, long-only strategies along the lines you'd find at Fidelity, American Funds, etc.
starting at macro hedge fund vs. BB S&T (Originally Posted: 08/13/2012)
what do you guys think? have a FT offer from a solid trading desk at a BB, but am thinking about going through recruiting for macro funds.
i have an idea of what the BB trading route entails: you can either move up to VP/MD at the BB after ~10 years and if you have a good track record, maybe jump to HF (large platforms included) as junior PM or PM.
alternatively, after ~2 to 3 years at the BB, you can jump to some macro HF (probably not the large platforms) in a junior analyst capacity, and then try to move up from there. however, i don't have much color on what you'd be doing as a junior analyst at a macro HF, and the path to eventually managing risk from that spot.
i assume joining a macro fund as a junior analyst after 2-3 years at BB is fairly similar to just joining a macro fund as a junior analyst right out of college, except it saves you more time. so i'm considering this route but hoping others can chime in on what that experience would be like.
tyia
not a lot of hedge funds recruit out of undergrad, but if you wanted to get into a smaller fund then it would definitely be possible. i do feel that if you want to work at a mega hedge fund, then you would probably want to get some experience first at a more structured position. You could do ER or work in AM, and could eventually move to a HF.
Macro hedge funds don't hire junior traders. Fundamental flaw in your original post assumptions. The guys moving after 2-3 years in a BB are joining value investing funds, not macro funds. There have been many posts on this so search for them.
Some of them definitely hire junior analysts, both out of college and after 2-3 years at a BB. Might not be brevan or Caxton but I know it has happened at some macro funds. What I don't know is what these guys actually do in that role...
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