Deringer et al., Thanks guys for your input. Since I'm new here and don't know everyone's reputation/background, I wanted to ask a question--has anyone here had experience trading on a desk for a bulge bracket bank? What type of experience do most on this forum have (eg institutional, prop, independent)?
Think of 30 years of your life, lost to the high-cost rat race that is NY. Personal relationships seem a lot more expendable there. Marry a nice girl, work like hell to find a sustainable trading edge, and trade it from a nice town in the midwest. That would be my advice. In 20 years, you'll probaly have a lot more of love and money. Good luck.
The Citigroup sales and trading analyst program does not offer direct placement into a specific desk(at least it didn't in 2002). Instead, analyst rotate through multiple desks at the start of the program, and then interview to be placed onto specific desks. This can be both a plus and a negative. You can get alot of quick exposure to many different trading areas, but there is no guarantee that you will be assigned to the desk of your top preference. Certain "hot" areas like equity derivatives and mortgage trading tend to be alot more difficult to get into than others. I'm assuming you are starting work in the fall of 2006. Note that the summer analysts who worked in 2005 and who are staying on full-time tend to have an advantage in getting the best placements since they already know the people. Take this into account when you are choosing between different banking analyst programs. Most of these other programs place you directly into a specific trading area.
YOu guys are right about that...it is really depends on what you wanted to do...trading or analyst...but I do not think that you can make a lot of money as a analyst (usually you work on fix income) while traders can control their destiny( millionaire or nothing)....Any idea????