At Fireside Insights, we believe the best way to learn about potential career opportunities is through exposure. In this Career Perspectives article, we learned about what it is like to work in the finance world as a trading analyst from Prince Ilboudo. Prince graduated from Connecticut College with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations and is currently working as an Equity Trading Analyst at Capital Group where he provides quantitative analysis for their European trading activity.
What does a typical day look like for you? There isn’t any typical day. I would get in before the London stock market opens. There are a couple of automated jobs that I set up to run quick data analysis overnight, so I check those to make sure they worked properly. I will check my emails; respond to the ones that require immediate attention and flag those I will get to later. From there, the rest of the day varies. Some days, will focus on one piece of analysis. Others will be dedicated to learning new statistical tools. I often meet with brokers to understand the algorithm products they offer, go over our transaction cost analysis or hear their thoughts on the European equity market. In the afternoon, I often have conference calls to attend with colleagues in the US. I don’t have an end of day time but I like to stay behind later in the afternoon when the office is quieter to get more work done when I had many meetings during the day.
What is your favorite aspect of the work that you do? It is the constant learning – learning new tools, new types of analysis and new developments in the equity market.
What are some of the challenges faced by someone in your role? I work with a lot of data. The main challenge with the analysis is to be able to derive meaningful insights. But big data is not always insightful, it could just be noise.