Duties as an Analyst available, investment, building, valuation, potential

gjcxc

My title at work is an analyst, but I do not work at a typical investment bank. I've been here about a year and am enjoying my job but many days are slow days. My duties include building valuation models for potential M&A's, but model templates from previous deals are already available, so all I do basically is plug in the numbers to the models. And, as we are a small shop, I am not working on modelling all day long. In my down time, I read analyst reports to try to look for graphs or spreadsheets that would be useful for our company, so I can track similar benchmarks for our company. Then at times I support the associates and VP's with projects they give me, such as building templates for certain valuation.

We are a very 'do-your-own-thing' oriented company, so I have to basically find my own work to do. I feel as though my work isn't challenging enough and was wondering if this is normal. I would be very interested in knowing what other analysts do on a daily basis - what sort of projects you work on (in broad terms without giving material, nonpublic info).

Anybody else want to share?

dvilayphet

rockstar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would be very interested in knowing what other
> analysts do on a daily basis - what sort of
> projects you work on (in broad terms without
> giving material, nonpublic info).
>
> Anybody else want to share?

Title: Analyst (buy-side at a mutual fund)

Job description as written by me: Make the PM's life easier as far as research. If investing is football and actually placing a trade is a touchdown, my job is to get him from 0 to the 50 yard line on a company, and then he'll usually take over from there.

Duties: Probably something like:

35% excel (backward looking and forward looking both)

45% reading and writing reports on target companies or industries. Huge amounts of financial statement reading, good amount of reading industry whitepapers, trade journals, and newspaper articles on target companies and competitors.

10% running screens and sorting/updating our investment universe so that my boss can take a look and assign me new work as we finish/discard other names we're working on.

10% attending annual meetings, listening to conference calls, conducting interviews w/mgmt, etc (normally someone senior to me is doing this stuff).

------------------------------------------------------------------
Every body do not forget I can clear describe my case ; I am not crazy ! I talk the truth only.
-qqqbee



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 04:56PM by supersadface.

Carson

@supersadface: That's awesome. Thanks for sharing man. How long have you been at your job for?

@SkipE99: Yes... doodies...

ninja1024

SkipE99 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dooty


Haha beat me to it.

dirk01

rockstar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @supersadface: That's awesome. Thanks for sharing
> man. How long have you been at your job for?

About 9 months. At the one year mark, I will be granted coffeemaker privileges and 5 mins/day for bathroom breaks. It's kind of an honor.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Every body do not forget I can clear describe my case ; I am not crazy ! I talk the truth only.
-qqqbee



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Friday, May 13, 2011 at 09:04AM by supersadface.

Valores

hahaha that's kinda sad bro. but congratz soon! u know u're making ur way up in life when u can pee without anxiety...


supersadface Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> rockstar Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > @supersadface: That's awesome. Thanks for
> sharing
> > man. How long have you been at your job for?
>
> About 9 months. At the one year mark, I will be
> granted coffeemaker privileges and 5 mins/day for
> bathroom breaks. It's kind of an honor.

dvilayphet

Just so we're clear on this, I was kidding. My working conditions are pretty sweet - somewhere between 50-60 hrs/week and we've got a company gym. I ain't complaining.

rockstar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hahaha that's kinda sad bro. but congratz soon! u
> know u're making ur way up in life when u can pee
> without anxiety...
>
>
> supersadface Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > rockstar Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > @supersadface: That's awesome. Thanks for
> > sharing
> > > man. How long have you been at your job for?
> >
> > About 9 months. At the one year mark, I will
> be
> > granted coffeemaker privileges and 5 mins/day
> for
> > bathroom breaks. It's kind of an honor.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Every body do not forget I can clear describe my case ; I am not crazy ! I talk the truth only.
-qqqbee

Iginla2010

Agreed. My department is also very 'do your own thing' and the daily challenge is to find ways that I can add value. The challenge with being intellectual capital versus manual labor staff is that adding value can be an ambiguous task.

My days can be as slow as I want them to be or as full as I want them to be. So you have to be very self motivated...and hope the work you do actually gets read and used. However, the alternative is to be overworked with a micro-managing boss...I guess we should be careful what we wish for.

CPATrader

@ supersadface: with the excess supply of capable ppl looking for jobs these days, you never know... I know a few who would sign up for a job even if it comes with wiping the MD's ass with benjamins.

@TC82: I was thinking about the same thing today... how if you were working as a manual laborer, your achievements and performance are easily identifiable to be praised and appreciated. I absolutely agree that it is a trade off between a self-motivating job and big brother watching you all the time. Don't get me wrong, the reason why I posted this is because I'm uninspired and am looking for ideas to be able to add value to my company, and not to @#$%& and whine. Are you an equity analyst? Ie. what's your job description (as supersadface so accurately labelled it)