One of the primary functions of an investment bank is buying and selling products both on behalf of the bank’s clients and also for the bank itself.
Sales & Trading involves transactions in the secondary market.
In the process of market making, traders will buy and sell financial products with the goal of making an incremental amount of money on each trade. They provide liquidity by matching buyers and sellers – literally making a market. Sales is the term for the investment banks sales force, whose primary job is to call on institutional and high-net-worth investors to suggest trading ideas and take orders. Sales desks then communicate their clients’ orders to the appropriate trading desks, who can price and execute trades, or structure new products that fit a specific need.
Structuring has been a relatively recent division as derivatives have come into play, with highly technical and numerate employees working on creating complex structured products which typically offer much greater margins and returns than underlying cash securities. The necessity for numerical ability has created jobs for physics and math PhDs who act as quants.
Banks undertake risk through proprietary trading, done by a special set of traders who do not interface with clients and through Principal Risk, risk undertaken by a trader after he buys or sells a product to a client and does not hedge his total exposure. Banks seek to maximize profitability for a given amount of risk on their balance sheet.
Activities carried out in a Sales & Trading include:
- Broking and Dealing
- Providing liquidity to customers willing to trade (Market Making)
- Originating and structuring more or less bespoke products for the retail market or the wholesale sector
- Proprietary trading: generating revenues taking outright positions with the institution’s capital or credit resources
- Maintaining good and lasting relationship with current and prospective clients.
How do I get a graduate scheme / internship / entry level job or career in Sales & Trading?
Obtaining a graduate scheme, internship or entry level role in sales & trading can be very challenging and competitive – though very achievable by getting your application, CV, interview and general approach right. You can guarantee that ninety percent of applicants for sales & trading roles will not know how to apply, so getting your application in the top ten percent makes things a lot more achievable.
Approaching the company in the right way will make all the difference. Combining the right approach with a strong interview (and in some cases assessment centre) writ a strong focused tailored CV will go a long way. Make sure you have gone through the free videos on this sight by entering your name and email address in the top right of this screen underneath the video. Once you have filled this in you will have instant access to everything you need to secure your career in sales & trading.
Roles in Sales and Trading:
-
Sales and Flow Trader
-
Equity / Debt Market Maker
-
Derivatives Market Maker
-
Proprietary Trader
-
Stock Broker
-
Spread Betting / CFD Market Maker
-
Structurer
-
Institutional Sales
-
Inter-Dealer Broker
-
Financial Information Sales
-
Trainee Trader
Top 10 Graduate Recruiters in Sales & Trading (In no order)
- Morgan Stanley
- Goldman Sachs
- UBS
- BNP Paribas
- Barclays Capital
- JP Morgan
- Deutsche Bank (Commerzbank)
- Credit Suisse
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Citi Group
