Which role in finance is the best according to you guys?
I personally like equity research as it involves less client interface and more analytical and concept based.
Also could you suggest other roles which involve less client interaction and be more of a desk job with numbers and stuff
The one that pays me the most with the fewest hours required and let’s me come and go as I please.
He said in finance.
From my observation the guy who gets paid to play golf with pension fund managers and consultants, doesn’t even know how to use email but makes more than everyone at the firm seems to have it pretty good. That is 100% client interaction and 0% desk and numbers though.
Personally, I think the role of the Personal Financial Planner who also does taxes and portfolio management is the best job in the world. It’s especially awesome if you’re completely self-employed with no employees. (STL should look into this.)
Think about it: If you have 50 clients and each client has $2-5 million (say $3m on average), then you have $150m in AUM. If you charge a 1% fee (which covers the tax return and financial planning), then your revenue is $1.5 million.
With revenue of $1.5m, your payout is 75%, and total overhead of less than $60k (and that’s for ALL expenses–rent, copier, computer, software, etc.), then you’re still making over a million dollars a year. You’ll probably be pretty busy between Super Bowl Sunday and April 15. Other than that, you get to come and go as you please (as long as your clients are happy). You’d probably work (and I use the term “work” very loosely) about 20 hours per week.
The downside–you have to develop the clientele, and you have to learn about (and stay abreast of) all the myriad changes in the Texas Business Code, the Texas Estate and Trust Legislative Code, the Texas the Internal Revenue Code, etc. And you have to know how to apply all of these changes in each client’s life.
I’d rather be that pension guy. Even if paid less
The biggest drawback of this job is that you are responsible not just for other people’s money, you are responsible for their feelings about their money. Just too much hand-holding and babysitting even if get reasonable and rational clients…
Depending on the pension, they can make bank. But it’s a hard gig. Think about what you said about Greenie’s role and multiply it by a few billion. You have an entire company’s workforce depending on your decisions. The guys I know that run pensions, either directly employed at the firm or as an outsourced CIO, are stressed out to the max. Outsourced CIO is a little better since you’re at least a bit removed from the company.
Go work for university endowment. 10AM-3PM job, lose money and no one cares, because alumni just increase your AUM anyway. Harvard Management was just a big booze party for decades. Go talk to any hedge fund manager today and they will say asset retention is their primary goal that occupies their mind at all time. Imagine if your monkey investors keep giving you capital regardless and the only factor that seems to matter is how well the school’s football team is doing.
AF Forum Editor
Head of CFA institute would be a sweet job.
I’m interested in financial roles that actually provide value. So roles that either deal with non traditional assets where there is no efficient market or situations where the outcome isn’t zero sum. I liked equity research, but I didn’t want to bet my future on an industry in secular decline.
Does it have to be a paying job?
Oh, so like actively managed funds?
I have all your dopp kits.
For a million dollars a year for working less than half time, I think I could give it a shot.
There is none
I hear what you saying but I would argue that individual “reaction” is in fact rather different than institutional “reaction” and imo much harder to manage as it involves such subjective things as likability and trust on much more personal level. Aka too much drama for my taste
Actively managed funds that aren’t investing in things on exchanges, then yes.
If you believe that, you are working in the wrong areas 