What Do Investment Bank Traders Really Get Paid?

what we're gonna look at now are the actual real numbers of what people get paid in these industries we're gonna look at the investment bank first but we're also gonna get Wilson we're also going to focus on some of the things that you wouldn't expect occur if you haven't worked for one of these companies before because there's a lot of things that you get given in your contracts which you don't know occurs at this time but you're applying for it and you need to know what you're applying for these are the things that they'll never tell you so first things first what are you all really applying for the job that you're applying for is the financial analyst at the investment bank there'll be ten thousand of you applying for each trading position fifteen years ago the ratio was about two to three thousand to one so let's get this out the way first why has the ratio gone up we've gone over one of the reasons why less jobs available if everything's down 80% the number of humans on the desk is down 80% there's less jobs available but there's another reason why can anyone guess that's to do with the demand side of the labor market what about the supply side well there's more people today at university than ever before and all of you have just been picking up the newspaper for the last four or five years reading how much traders are making in the city out of the crisis so naturally you all want to work in the city and all these banks you've never you haven't been able to pick up a newspaper for a week without a bank being on the front one of them they've become household names said now your parents have heard of them so I was quite surprised earlier because we've been on the University tour now for three weeks when asked why is everybody applying to investment banks nobody says the prestige that's been one that's come up a lot the prestige of working for the name and having it on your business card and having the title but let's see what it really means because I consider a business card and what you put in the ATM how much do you actually make well ten thousand of you are applying for that you're applying for a basic salary of 40,000 pounds even ten years ago the basic salary for an FA was sixty so in real terms it would be down even if you get in paid sixty it's down to forty and you'll be lucky to get a bonus of five to 10 K and by the way these numbers are not made up these up these have come for weeks ago directly from three managing directors at three of the top investment banks who I know and we had the conversations we had the conversations over a mobile phone not on the recorded landline so off the record and they told me what they're paying their staff this year at every level that's what financial analyst gets paid 40 plus a bonus of five to ten we'll come back to that in a second I want you to focus on the word in brackets next to financial analysts contractor ten thousand of you are not applying for a full-time job it's a part-time contract so if you're the guy that gets the contract it gets sent to you in the post if you're that one out of the ten thousand it'll get sent to you in the post on the first couple of pages it'll say this contract expires in two years you've got a two-year contract you're not working for the company full-time so you're a two-year contractor on 40 K plus 5 to 10 K bonus that's one of the things they don't tell you so you'll be put through an interview process of 20 30 40 interviews and then you'll feel really lucky to get the contract at the end and you'll just sign it but the reality is it's a two-year contract let's go back to the numbers so a gross salary of 50k can you live in central London on a gross salary of 50k because you will have to live in central London by the way because you've got to be in the office at 6:00 so try try commuting from outside London to get in for six you ever got a chance so you have to live in central London can you live in central London on 50k who says yes okay we'll come back to that in a second yeah we're going to come back to that as well we'll look at the gross numbers first so gross salary of 50k can you actually live in central London so one person says yes if you're living with your parents who says no who doesn't know okay the answer is absolutely no you can't you'll be living month-to-month every month you put your card in the machine it'll say zero or have a negative in front of it and the negative will just get worse over the two years you can't live on that money in central London you'll live an awful life awful life if you go to an investment bank now and get paid that as a financial analyst contractor yeah you're either after two years going to be more in debt than you were at university or if you're living off your parents they're sponsoring your hobby job it's the truth you can't live on that money there's no doubt about it you'll be flat sharing so it'll be like you haven't even left University you won't get richer you you'll probably end up poorer 20% of the people who get rinsed through the financial analyst program end up becoming associates what happens at the associate stage you get sent another contract now you've got a full-time contract so you'll sign your full-time contract once you sign it your salary goes up so you get offered the promotion so your salary will go up to 80 K basic 50 to 100k bonus however this is where the stock portion of your bonus kicks in so you'll get 15 20 percent of your bonus given to you in the company's stock and you'll be on a lock up this is something else that they don't tell you you'll be on what's called a lock up so whatever you get paid in year 3 typically you can't sell it for 5 years you can't sell it till year 8 whatever you get paid in year 4 you can't sell it till year 9 whatever you get paid in year 5 you can't sell it to a year 10 if you resign you give it all up so you're locked in you're locked up and you're in prison that's why it's called a lock-up pretty obvious you'll spend three to five years as an associate 3 if you're lucky and then you'll get to vice president's executive director level where you'll go to 200k basic and bonus of about 125 K the portion that you get paid in your bonus in stock goes up the more senior you are so you get more locked in if you resign you give it all up the vast majority of people who actually end up getting to that stage spend the rest of their careers at that level only my only a small minority get so junior MD or senior MD let's go back to associate so you've now spent two three years as a financial analyst contractor you've been promoted can you live on 150 175 K in central London who says yes yeah you can but you'll still live a very basic life what about if we get to the vice-president executive director so 325 K 325 K a lot of money can you live in central London on that you can but you'll still live a very basic life I'll be showing you why jr. managing directors you'll be running a business if you get to this level within the bank I'm reporting to a senior MD so you've been about 300k basic 200k bonus the stock portion goes up so at least 25% 5-year lock up resignation penalty again so half a million quid if you get all the way to the top senior managing director half a million pounds basic a million pounds bonus the probability of you getting there is close to zero because go right back to the beginning there's 10,000 of you applying for one trading position so the probability of you getting to VP executive director is still very very low to MD it's almost nothing so some interesting things there that you probably didn't understand or didn't know about that goes on in your contracts and how the industry works as you progress but we talked about gross numbers just there this gentleman wants to talk about the net numbers so what you get paid actually after-tax because those numbers don't mean anything what's meaningful is what ends up in your pocket and if you're in the United States you'll pay government and local tax in the UK you're gonna pay your income tax government tax and you'll pay your National Insurance Contributions it doesn't matter what it's called if the government takes it it's a tax so if you receive your pay slip and it says as the company we wanted to pay this person three hundred thousand pounds but with we have to pay him 150 and 150 goes to the government what ends up in your pockets is 150 if the government's taken it it doesn't matter what it's called it's a tax this is if you get to VP level so this will be after six to eight years your basic of 200 becomes one hundred eight thousand three hundred pounds a month your bonus twenty percent of it goes on stock that you don't get and you can't sell for five years and you might not ever get it because if you resign or you're fired for gross misconduct you'll never get it so you can't consider it real wealth until you've actually got it oh the other thing that might happen is the stock might go to zero so in 2007 beginning of the year managing directors at Bear Sterns were worth twenty twenty-five million dollars on paper by the middle of the year they were worth nothing so you can't really count it as real wealth until you get it so after the twenty percent gone after tax what do you end up with in your bank account at the end of the year 50k so you've got eight thousand three hundred pounds a month cash flow and at the end of the year you get a deposit of 50k into your bank account can you live on that money in central London but you could but you'd live a basic life that's my point the perception of what people get paid and what ends up in their pocket is totally misguided you need to understand these numbers if you're going to give up the best years of your life your 20s to get up in the dark and go home in the dark and sit all data computer staring at algorithms for 10 years you need to understand what you're going to be compensated to do that that's your compensation after 6 to 8 years that's what guys investment banks get paid now at VP and edie level if you lived a very basic life eight thousand three hundred pounds a month you might save a grand a month at the end of the year you'd get 50 grand you'd have saved 62 you might be able to buy a new BMW treat yourself you won't get much opportunity to drive it because you'll be at the desk 70 hours a week Monday to Friday

Channel: InstituteofTrading

Views: 844,064

Rating: 4.7140727 out of 5

Keywords: Anton Kreil, Raj Malhotra, Jason McDonald, Chris Cathey, ITPM, Institute of Trading, Goldman Sachs, Trading, Retail Trading, FOREX, Instutrade, Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management, Ben Berggreen, Stock Market, David Perlin, Ross Williams, Anthony Iser, Million Dollar Traders, Hedge Funds, Investment Banks, Training, Coaching, Mentoring, Business, NYSE, NASDAQ, Day Trading, Swing Trading, Hichem Djouhri, Stocks, Commodities, Interview, Wall Street, Finance, Millionaire, Billionaire

Id: MPjWRu5heGs

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2018