join Group One / DRW Trading Group or Goldman as i-banking analyst?

You are talking about 2 completely different career paths. I-banking and trading are like night and day. Have you thought about the type of person you are, your strengths and weaknesses, personality type..stuff like that? I would imagine that most career traders couldn't possibly see themselves in i-banking and vice versa.
 
Carl -- You need to go to a good school, get good grades and then get an offer before starting these threads. You're wasting everyone's time.

Your last comment just proved it - now, go back to asking folks if they want their lunch super-sized!
 
All I'd say is I'm a prop trader and guys where I work earn up to the equivalent of two million dollars a year and can work anywhere in the world and can choose when they want to to work.Don't get me wrong to get to this level takes a huge amount of work however they are now financially independant.Bank traders on the other hand have to work very long hours I know some bank traders who just sleep all weekend and yes the products banks trade eg swaps are otc derivatives and there is alot of money to be made but you can only ever trade this working for a bank and not on your own because of the size unless you set up your own hedge fund.Yes you probably can earn more at goldmans and then retire early although I've heard if you earn over 200k a year at goldmans your in the top 20%.But if you prop trade you can earn good money and have a life at the same time.All depends on your personality I guess.
 
What does equivalent of $2 million mean? Either you make it or you dont.

FYI, $200 doesnt place you in the top 20% of GS salaries.
 
Quote from Deringer:

That's not the norm. That's like someone telling me that a UPenn grad hasn't found work in 12 months since graduation. Sure, a few might exist, but that's certainly not the norm.

If an ex-GS banker (associates are called bankers too) is out of work for a year and a half, most likely, it's by choice. I doubt it's because he hasn't received any kind of offers at all. Maybe he is picky and doesn't want to return to work for anything less than $100K. So ex-GS bankers aren't starving or ever going to have to starve. All the lesser jobs are easily available to them. But that's not the case for ex-marketmakers/traders who didn't make it.
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In a way, you are right. But I believe that I never indicated that these ex-ibank associates are in danger of starving. It is also natural that during the recession of 2001-2003, wall street ibanking underwent some fairly large layoffs (M&A basically dried up). It would be tough for an tier-one ibanking associate after being laid off to take an associate job with a tier-two even tier-three regional bank, it will be a big turn from the career path. For instance, if an ex-GS ibanking associate (keeping the GS theme here), after being laid off, gets an offer from, say Legg Mason (a real example), it would be a huge step down from working on leading deals to working on weird small-cap follow-up underwritings (they are butt boring). The prized job for tier-one ibanking associates would be private equity, venture capital, or nowadays, activist hedge funds.

I was on the recruiting committee for a tier-one investment bank for new MBA graduates. I was doing analytics, so I was looking for quantitatively inclined. But I was surprised to flip through the final result to find out that the new ibanking associate for 2002 class consists of 13 accepted offers (very very small considering that the '05 class is probably 60-70), 10 from HBS, 1 from Stanford, 1 from Sloan, and 1 from Columbia, that's it, no Wharton, no B-school ranked below them (Tuck, Hass, etc). Of course this is during the bottom of recession in 2002, but who can guarantee that we won't have any economic downturn a couple of years from now?

Just my $0.02, take it however you will.
 
Just to give you an idea of what happened to a friend of mine.

He graduated top of his class at average undergraduate with the intent on going to B-school.
He worked for a large I-bank in NY. His first 2 years he pretty much worked non-stop. But he stood out among his peers and eventually was hand picked to join a private equity start up. That firm is now a monster firm in private equity. He is now a senior MD making mid 7 figures. (yes, multi million) At age 32.

The money got so good he never even bothered going to B-school. Now his case might be special, , but that's just an idea.

So, if your goal is to make a ton of money I'd take the GS job..bust your ass for a couple years and then keep your eyes open for opportunities.

Good luck.
 
For a kid right out of school, going to Goldman could not be a better opportunity. As long as he doesn't spend all his money on strippers, and stays away from NYC gold diggers, he has the potential to build a nice nest egg in a few years and he always has the option to get into trading later.

You could even change your mind if you're 10m net worth, you could retire to some warm spot and chilling the rest of your life.

Staying there past the mid 30s that's hard, though: no private life, traveling all the time for business not pleasure, no time for your family, your wife complains she feels lonely and then she cheats on you, and then asks for a divorce plus her 50% and the house.

If the prop trading gig doesn't work out, then your options are: managing a midtown deli, insurance salesman, and the like.
 
well to be fair this isn't some lame prop shop where they dont train you and you provide your own capital to start. This is for an extremely profitable options trading firm that is growing, and they are only opening the opportunity to recent ivy league grads basically. They have received tons of superstar resumes right now- so I wouldn't just call it some prop shop. Their training program is like 18 months long and the goal is to become a regular trader. They pay a competitive salary and bonus throughout the training period.
 
OK, my mistake, but I'd keep thinking in probabilities.

What's the worst that can happen in choice a, b, c... what are the odds I can make big bucks in choice a,b,c,... what doors close forever if I choose option a,b,c.

what doors will open at a,b, or c that won't at the others.

While market making is closer to trading than I-banking, I think it will be difficult later to get rid of the scalper mentality and adapt to the position trader mindset, and that's where the big bucks are imho.

Plenty of dead funds started by former pit traders/ market makers.
 
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