

Ask HN: Where does one get started with investment banking? - rfnslyr

Background: I am 20. I want to make money. I currently work at a bank as a software developer. I am halfway through a software development degree. I have my foot in the door, had meetings with bankers and a possible internship next year.<p>In terms of reading material and self study, what is a good point to get into investment banking?<p>Nearly every field has a de facto resource to get into that field.<p>Where do I start? So far I&#x27;ve been reading Benjamin Graham&#x27;s material.<p>Goal: To make use of my software knowledge in conjunction with investment banking to make myself money. I don&#x27;t necessarily want to work at a big bank.
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jpau
I don't work in finance, but I have a degree in the discipline and a tiny bit
of experience. I also freaking love finance.

Start with a broad class on economics (e.g. Econ 001 on UC Berkeley's
webcasts, or intro macro and intro micro on MIT OCW). Then take a look at
"Financial Theory" on Yale's OYC. Following Financial Theory, take Financial
Markets on OYC too.

Stay on top of current events. Obsessively. I have an IB friend who claims
that his perfect-GPA interns who barely know what's going on in the world are
useless compared to average-GPA* interns who can relate content to context.
Context is everything; financial decisions never exist in a constrained
system.

There's always so much going on that you need some service for digesting the
news (as opposed to opinions and analysis). For news look at the WSJ or FT.
Bloomberg isn't as shabby as people say; simply stick to Bloomberg's news and
not their analysis (which is often poor). Podcasts and audio editions are
helpful (you can only read so much, but you can jog to someone reading the
WSJ). Understanding others' opinions (derived from their analysis) is very
important, because it helps you spark or critique your own. I've seen some
other blogs posted here that are good... but you cannot beat FT's Alphaville
blog (free).

Where does your existing knowledge stand? Have you learned some sort of
finance 101? Relevantly, have you taken any economics or accounting classes?
Remember that finance is really an intersection of economics, accounting and
statistics - so leverage any relevant knowledge that you already have.

Oh, and good luck :)

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* What he calls an "average" GPA, I think of as excellent. Our local unis work on a 1-7 scale (4 is a pass), and "average" means to him 6-6.3 (or a "distinction" average). These same universities usually equate a USA GPA 3/4 to a GPA 5/7\. So that's a rough guide of who your competing interns are :)

For further context (comparing GPAs between university systems is never
easy..), I graduated with a 'meager' 5.6 GPA from a good university, which
still placed me in the top 20% of my class.

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rfnslyr
I've been looking at Yale's courses recently as well as Khan Academy's
Economics and Finance courses (Finance and Capital Markets, Microeconomics,
Macroeconomics). I'm thinking of getting an iPad or some other thin light
weight device that I can read news on, though I don't know what yet.

What's poor about Bloomberg's analysis?

Good idea about the podcasts. Do you have any recommendations?

My existing is knowledge is basic College accounting.

Thanks!

Those are insane, 90% as average.

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jpau
Basic accounting will help heaps :) Let me know how Khan's stuff goes - IIRC,
he used to work as a hedge fund analyst (yep, thanks Wikipedia). It'd be
interesting to watch his videos :)

Bloomberg's analysis tends to be shallow and short-sighted. They'll turn out
what's supposed to be a deep piece, but it's almost as if they try to tune out
words; there's no rigor in the insight. Nine out of ten times, I'll read an
article, consider it for a moment, and find a dozen crucial questions that are
unanswered or parts that are outright incorrect.

On the other hand, Bloomberg's news service is phenomenal. And Bloomberg is
continuously pushing out podcasts (under many titles) that are great for
digesting news along with the _occasional_ interesting interview.

IB is supposed to be really competitive in the USA, but it would not surprise
me if it were more-so in Australia because of a lack of demand. Though the
below is factual, take the conclusion with a grain of salt; I'm clearly biased
haha.

Australia has an excellent public university system that pushes out top
graduates, but we don't really have anywhere to go if we want to get into IB
(relatively speaking, we're a small but rich country). In my city - Brisbane -
we have the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of
Technology, both of which have excellent business schools. UQ's MBA is often
ranked in the top 50 worldwide. Yet most IBs don't even have an office here -
the few we have in Australia is either in Sydney or Melbourne.

Don't get me wrong, many graduates from UQ and a few from QUT go into in IB.
But they're few and far between and the quantity as a proportion of students
makes it seem nigh on impossible.

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applecore
Read the archives of _Mergers & Inquisitions_[1] if you want to break into
investment banking.

[1]:
[http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com](http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com)

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rfnslyr
Do you have a link to the archives? I can't find them. Thanks for the link.

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cubecul
WallStreetOasis[1] is the leading forum for discussions and frequently asked
questions.

[1]: [http://www.wallstreetoasis.com](http://www.wallstreetoasis.com)

