Fixed income or equity-quant analyst?

[acol]

Hello,

I'm fresh out of undergrad and have the option of joining as an equity quant (portfolio management) or fixed-income analyst (HK hybrids) in a reputed IB. Background: Bachelors in CS, minor in economics, pretty good GPA from a reputed institute.

Pros/Cons I've heard about:

Equity quant: Role relevant to my background. I am good at programming, but not _really_ passionate about it. Also may be labelled as a "developer" in the long term, thus making it harder to transition to management roles later on.

Fixed Income: Would give me a good exposure to finance, but work may involve mechanical usage of excel VBA macros for risk management -- something which neither appears very challenging, nor which uses my technical skill sets.

What do you suggest?

 

[GoalSeeker]

People say fixed income world is slower n boring compared to the equity world. But having worked mostly in fixed income n recently moving to equity side.. I think fixed income modeling was more quantitative, interesting and LOGICAL. - worked on Structured products and enjoyed it more than the equity world

My 2 cents

 

[alain]

People say fixed income world is slower n boring compared to the equity world.

one more thing, fixed income world is BIG as in an order of magnitude bigger than the equity world. Keep that in mind. Remember people are more willing to borrow to grow than to sell a piece of the business.

 

[AlvinSoh]

Hi acol, just wonder how did you manage to get a job just after graduation? Did you use a recruiter?