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Bergomi
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Joined: January 31st, 2017, 10:36 am

Securities Strats at GS: Summer

January 31st, 2017, 10:57 am

Hello everyone, next summer I will intern at GS as a Securities Strats summer Analyst. I have some experience in the industry (HFT) but not so much in actual highly quantitative things (I took a financial maths course last year though). I wonder if someone went through this summer, what did you do ? Do you have any advice to transform this summer in a full time offer ? I am ready to work/study things before the summer starts so that I can perform well. But what should I study ? Stochastic volatility models, GPU programming, SQL, Machine Learning ?
If some of you work as Strats at GS, what would you like to see from a summer intern and what would you ask from him ?

Thanks guys
 
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Alan
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 3rd, 2017, 7:39 pm

My two cents without having worked there, but having seen some of their guys in action.

Their ideal guy/gal would be somebody with enough technical knowledge and presentation abilities to get up in front of an institutional client and make a presentation about X. Here X  will be their latest thinking on some equity strategy or whatever.

The goal is to convince that client that GS is a deep expert on X, and will involve many buzzwords, and persuasively sound like it will lead to better returns or solve some problem of the clients. Indeed, it might. In any event, fundamentally, they want to earn or retain that client's business: brokerage, asset management, whatever.   

So, my advice is to learn as much as you can about the "big picture" aspects of the industry, so that you can ask some good questions once you get there.
 
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ISayMoo
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 3rd, 2017, 9:18 pm

Shorter version: learn to bullshit people.
 
Bergomi
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 4th, 2017, 8:50 am

But Strats are the GS quants equivalent, is this really what it is about ? Bullshitting clients with no actual research ?? I hope you confused GS strats with the strategist we sometimes hear about in equity research. Am I right ?
 
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Paul
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 4th, 2017, 9:27 am

Shorter version: learn to bullshit people.
And the Governorship of the Bank of England is yours, my son.
 
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Alan
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 4th, 2017, 3:11 pm

But Strats are the GS quants equivalent, is this really what it is about ? Bullshitting clients with no actual research ?? I hope you confused GS strats with the strategist we sometimes hear about in equity research. Am I right ?
I'm sure there is much actual research. My point is that their ideal person would (ultimately) be able to i) do the research, ii) direct/manage the research, iii) present the research to clients; i.e., monetize it. So, that might be how they will assess you, re making a full-time offer.

Note that "clients" could, potentially include groups internal to the firm itself; i.e., prop trading, esp. so now after Dodd-Frank is likely gutted. This should work to your advantage if you can convince them that you may be able to deliver significant money-making ideas. 

A little googling shows that GS revenue/employee is, ballpark, $1 million/yr. This gives you a rough measure of what they expect from you. 

Anyway -- I am just speculating. Are there truly no GS alumni on the forum?
 
Bergomi
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Re: Securities Strats at GS: Summer

February 24th, 2017, 8:13 am

I waited to see if there were other answers, but it doesn't seem so. Thank you guys for your help!

To be a bit more precise because I received a strange PM (that I wasn't able to reply to due to regulation for newcomers on this forum), I am not wondering what Strats do, rather I wanted to know what strats summer interns do.