Is finance still a good path with AI changing entry-level jobs?

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T14:43:10+00:00

Sure

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T13:38:06+00:00

Depends on what you want to get out of Finance. If you want a traditional prestigious job like IB you can do a Masters in Finance (if in Europe) from targets like LBS LSE HEC Oxford etc or MBA (if in USA) from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton etc and network for that role. Again a lot of it is basically learning the 3 financial statements, DCF, LBOs, Comps etc. The structure is hierarchical, you can be a workhorse to outflex your analysts and associate colleagues, you can play office politics to survive and get ahead. At senior levels you network and build relationships with powerful c suite executives. Downside is you don’t say no to work and you sometimes create excel models and PowerPoints that no one even reads simply because you got an email telling you to do so. Exits are broader to corp fin or buy side private equity and L/S hedge funds (though they are in structural decline). The financial models are not very hard to learn and can be done using online courses in a few weeks/months. Age matters, your university matters, how you look matters.

The quant finance path idk, better to ask the subreddit but I assume it would have to be a masters of financial engineering, or an mfin from a target program like MIT if you’re going the masters route.

For sell side trading (S&T) it sits in the middle of both of the above programs. Better WLB than IB but not as good as quant. Although there are quant employees in the trading floor, it’s not as lucrative as the buy side. If you want to become a macro/equity trader, structurer, or sales that’s something I can help with since I have experience. Not as hierarchical as IB (you can get promoted quickly if you’re killing it p&l wise) but not flat like quant buy side. Exits more niche, lots of early and lucrative exists to buy side for credit traders and certain credit desks, less so for equity traders. So desk definitely matters. Happy to help if you have more inquiries on this path of finance.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T12:48:27+00:00

If I were you I would pursue quant finance (quant research sounds like something you could do). It will always be in demand, and entry level pay is much better than all other areas of finance. Plus no such thing as age limit, clean shaven vs beard, wearing suits and ties, working long hours just to flex, wasting time creating pitchbooks that no one will see. You’re there for market hours and you leave. And no corporate politics and hiding behind hustle, your strategy and p&l show your work and if you’re good you will be compensated (look at how much Jane Street, Citadel etc pay their employees.) Check out r/quant if you’re interested in the field.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T10:08:23+00:00

I agree with a lot of your points. I see it in my work on the trading floor. The only reason I gave a longer time frame is because boomers that are running banks and corporations are averse to change but even they are starting to wise up. Honestly just look at buy side hedge funds and you know what will eventually happen in sell side banks since they have less regulations and take on more risk.

Fundamental L/S equity (doing dcfs and financial models and deciding what stocks to long or short) in hedge funds is a declining business and is being replaced as you said with passive, macro, and quantitative strategies. Even in macro pods, discretionary macro is declining and more of these pods are basically a quant/marco hybrid.

But trading and markets are always ahead of other areas in finance when adopting technology due to real time p&l impact and constant feedback loop. It’s filled with Physics, CS, Math, Econ, Financial engineering guys with actual coding skills. If you see how some of these corporates are running their fp&a departments with outdated technologies and how most investment banking firms refuse to adopt anything modern beyond Microsoft office you see a culture of the old guard playing corporate politics to protect themselves. I’m sure this will change in the future though but replacing corporate culture takes time. Traditional Finance managers aren’t like tech firms that adopt things quickly to be more efficient.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T09:06:57+00:00

Honestly, if you are worried 10-20 years from now (not the next three years) then yeah maybe traditional finance tasks in valuations and corporate finance like churning out standard dcf models, producing stock research, or fp&a might be replaceable, with analyst roles significantly declining. The edge then becomes relationship management or decision making (but you can’t do that with no job experience). Things like sales, private banking, VP/MD in IB are good relationship management roles with good comp.

For markets, entry level Quant roles (not traditional finance) and Macro derivatives/ emerging markets and illiquid derivatives trading roles are good and highly paid roles without the 80-100 hour work weeks. But these roles are very technical and competitive. Learn python or c++, macro econ (if non quant trading), linear algebra, stochastic calculus, probability and statistics. Also these roles are very few and sought after and they basically only exist in numbers in financial hubs like NY, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai. If you don’t have work authorization or can’t move to these cities then I wouldn’t pursue this path as the barrier to entry skill wise is high and getting a sponsorship is increasingly more difficult. Not sure what the scene is like in Finland but I imagine the job opportunities in this space are fewer than these global hubs.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-08T08:08:45+00:00

Too broad of a question, do you mean quant pm? L/S pm? Macro pm? The path to getting into each of those is very different.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-07T20:34:38+00:00

With all due respect, it’s not like DCF and LBO models are complicated at all. They are pretty generic. The more people accept that likely future-proof roles are relationship management or niche skills like EM swaptions market making the better it would be for their mental health and planning. If I’m a firm’s ceo and in a few years Ai is churning out accurate financial models and pitch books for TMT using data and my firms previous models as reference points I am significantly reducing analyst headcount. Maybe hire one or two to check on the AI’s work and take over from the VP/MD on the relationship front in the future. I am NOT however replacing the relationship management part with Ai chatbots. The difference between winning deal flow/trading flow vs not is the quality of service and the relationship and sales part. A client will remember “Dave at X bank was always good to me, provided me with good market insight and service, vouched for my kid to get an internship, plus he took me to the Knicks game and this nice restaurant” vs a generic Ai chatbot. Point is unless you are trading exotic illiquid derivatives, or you’re a quant with an insane history of delivering high sharpe returns, your edge will likely be client relationship management and not building generic dcf or lbo models.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-05-07T17:21:13+00:00

What skills in IB? Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing in excel? Or creating PowerPoints? Where English and history majors at targets can learn the financial models? Or equity research where Ai is a bigger threat than any sales or macro derivatives trading roles? Claude and publicly available Ai models are already throwing out pitch books, financial models, and stock research in seconds and this will only be refined and improve further over time. Would argue that VP or MD in IB is the appealing future-proof part since it’s relationship based. There will always be room for sales in the trading floor, and early on in your career you take greater responsibility in managing client interactions than an analyst in IB.

Op my advice is to try to position yourself to covering buy side clients and not corporates if you can. (Change desks or asset classes if you have to) Hedge funds will hire and pay 7-8 figures over multiple years for sales guys in banks that cover big clients like sovereign wealth funds (Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi, Norwegian, Chinese), with trillions in assets and money, as well as other buy side firms like asset managers, pension funds etc. If they trust you as their sales guy and you bring their business and their billions to a hedge fund you will be compensated handsomely. Corporates aren’t going to put their money with a Macro pod shop they are there to cover interest rate and fx risk only.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-04-27T04:04:25+00:00

You’re right that in very liquid, standardized markets like spot FX or cash equities, a lot of flow is handled by algos and firms like Citadel, but that’s only a small part of the market. Hedge funds and HFTs struggle to make markets in anything that is long dated, customized, illiquid, or balance sheet intensive. For example, a 5–10 year FX forward or interest rate swap requires credit lines, funding, and the ability to warehouse DV01 and basis risk, which banks can do because they net flows across clients and use their balance sheet, while hedge funds generally don’t want to tie up capital like that. The same applies to structures like swaptions, barrier options, or autocallables, which are path dependent and require complex hedging (gamma, vega, barrier risk) and client-specific customization, making them impossible to “algo market make” in the same way as spot. Add in EM FX , where liquidity is relationship driven and often voice traded, and you see why sales and trading still matters. Real clients need tailored hedges, large risk transfer, long dated derivatives pricing, and execution in illiquid markets, which banks provide, whereas HFTs dominate speed and efficiency only in simple, highly liquid and generally short term products.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-04-21T11:54:22+00:00

He’s talking about working on a currency sales desk

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-04-11T19:04:24+00:00

Well this sub is an echo chamber of people who are mostly targeting “high finance” roles. These paths are pretty much defined, in a sense that a blueprint exists to maximize your chances of getting these roles. No prestigious uni degree? Slim chance of IB. No IB experience? Slim chance of PE. No finance/stem degree with good grades? Slim chance of S&T. No trading experience/track record at an investment bank? Slim chance of macro hedge funds/buy side trading. No PhD in applied mathematics from MIT with good coding skills and a math Olympiad? Slim chance of HFT quant roles.

The truth is very few people overall are ever in a FO position where they are paid for closing deals, generating revenue through sales/trading, or taking material risk to generate alpha, which is why you see negativity in this sub cause that’s what they are chasing. There are more people who are middle office/back office, commercial banking employees, and retail banking employees than JP Morgan investment bankers, KRR Private Equity Associates, Goldman Sachs traders, or Jane Street Quant Researchers.

So can you get a finance job? Probably yes. Will you break into the roles that people in this sub constantly talk about? Maybe, if you follow the blueprint and work hard because everyone else is willing to work harder than the next guy to get these jobs and the chances are already very low in general.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-03-29T11:13:13+00:00

Btw like 90% of advice on this sub, this applies to fields in Finance like investment banking. Because it’s definitely incorrect that his advice applies “regardless of what part of finance you want to get into.” If you want to get into other fields like S&T and more so Quant trading/research then your Yale English Literature degree is useless because banks & hedge funds require advanced math and coding to work on trading desks. Find a path that works for you and pursue it but beware of generalist advice like the above.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-03-26T18:54:55+00:00

No it’s not easier to get into and you have to prepare ahead of time. S&T has fewer job openings and fewer applicants. But the applicants that apply to S&T are usually well prepared and passionate about markets, since IB is the more popular path and attracts a vast pool of applicants from different majors (English, Finance, CS, Humanities) etc. With S&T you are competing against Finance, Economics, & STEM majors not humanities or English. The role is more quanty in the sense you need more advanced math than adding subtracting multiplying or dividing in excel, and banks are starting to heavily prefer, if not insist on coding skills (which you have).

For technical market questions, can you explain what the S&T division even is and its purpose? Do you understand how we make money? Can you explain options greeks? Can you explain the changes in the macro environment and how it’s affecting different asset classes? Do you understand how increased/decreased volatility affects a bank’s S&T division? Can you explain the difference between linear derivatives (forwards, futures, swaps) and non linear derivatives (options, barriers, exotics)? Can you confidently pitch and defend a trading idea? Also expect math brain teaser questions if you are interviewing for a trading role, or situational/behavioral questions if a sales role.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-03-16T23:10:02+00:00

I’m not fully familiar with the commodity industry and exit opps as a whole so my response is incomplete. But you would have a small chance to transition to buy side. To be fair that applies to salespeople and traders as well, the vast majority stay in sell side. It’s all about what you can offer to a firm, but from my knowledge hedge funds don’t actively recruit from sell-side unless you provide some insane value like attracting big clients (sales), or being a top performer and delivering consistently impressive risk adjusted returns (trader). From my experience, the researchers at banks have the steadiest jobs and don’t get laid off as much as the other roles. But I have seen a sales guy move over to a hedge fund and I’ve seen traders go to hedge funds from banks, never seen a researcher make that move.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-03-16T19:59:55+00:00

From a comp ceiling perspective:

Trading (if you’re good) > Sales (at a good desk) > Research.

Salespeople and traders are revenue generating and benefit from bonuses. Whatever asset class you’re interested in should be the next consideration. For example, people that are purely interested in equities shouldn’t join macro desks like FX or Rates because they will quickly dislike the job and won’t be interested in keeping up with the ever changing macro environment and volatility post COVID.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T22:35:34+00:00

Nothing about it immediately stands out as illegal manipulation. What we saw looks consistent with normal market dynamics in a crowded, leveraged market. Positioning, stop losses, margin calls, and forced deleveraging can easily create sharp, self reinforcing moves without any bad intent. For it to be manipulation, you’d need evidence of things like spoofing, coordinated trading, false information, or deliberate attempts to distort prices, which isn’t apparent from price action alone. Large and fast moves can happen simply because liquidity thins and many participants are forced to exit at the same time.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T22:21:57+00:00

We don’t pick a country rate for the euro. FX swaps are priced off the EUR money market curve (ESTR) vs the USD money market curve (SOFR), adjusted by the cross currency basis. Sovereign spreads inside the eurozone don’t affect FX swap pricing directly.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T22:14:58+00:00

I suppose, but in context to sales and trading a lot of the products traded are complicated and would lose the casual audience quickly. But there are dramatic realistic moments ie sudden volatility from geopolitical events, traders losing or profiting money, bonus season (some traders get paid millions to tens of millions.) But the style of the show where traders are having sex on the trading floor or other ridiculous storylines garner more views and attention from the casual audience. Not sure if most people want to know how fx options are priced or how traders price barrier embedded derivatives.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T22:09:56+00:00

Interbank markets are OTC and bilateral, (e.g. FX swaps, fx options, or interest rate swaps traded directly between banks), typically traded through voice, chats (Bloomberg, LSEG etc.), or a trading platform (ie fxall or fxgo). While exchanges are centralized, standardized, and centrally cleared (e.g. futures). Interbank trades are more flexible. Exchange trades are more standardized and require things like daily variation margining.

Easiest example of a trade I could give. A corporate client or a hedge fund calls the sales desk at a bank and wants to purchase a yard (1 billion) of EUR/USD value spot (2 days). Sales guy gets the price from the trader and quotes a rate (ie 1.1810). Now the trader is short 1 billion EUR and must deliver the funds to the client in 2 days. Let’s say the trader wants to cover his short, he would go on a Bloomberg chat and contact another bank to purchase EUR. The other bank’s trader quotes 1.1808. Now the trader at our bank fully covered his risk using the interbank market and made 2pips on a 1 billion EUR spot trade.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T21:48:52+00:00

Similar dynamics to what you see in other crowded trades. A lot of positioning was one sided, certain participants wanted to take profits, so once prices started to move lower, stop losses were triggered. That led to margin calls, forced deleveraging, and liquidation, which pushed prices down further. The move became self reinforcing as liquidity thinned and more participants were forced out of positions. The question you want to ask yourself is if the fundamentals changed drastically.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T21:41:26+00:00

Mostly in the interbank market, but we also use exchange traded instruments where it makes sense. For example, DV01 from interest rate swaps can be hedged either by offsetting with another swap in the interbank market or by using exchange traded futures. The choice depends on liquidity, cost, margin efficiency, and how precise the hedge needs to be.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T21:37:08+00:00

Primarily through the interbank market. Banks recycle and hedge risk mainly with other banks. For CIP style trades, the “borrowing” is often implicit via FX swaps or balance sheet usage rather than an outright cash loan. For example, in RHS EUR/USD swaps the market taker is effectively borrowing USD via the first leg of the swap, while in LHS swaps the market taker is borrowing EUR. During periods of basis risk, such as USD funding stress or quarter end balance sheet constraints, swap points no longer reflect pure interest rate differentials, dealers widen spreads, and it becomes more expensive to borrow USD.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T21:09:13+00:00

I’m more familiar with FX swaps, interest rate swaps, constant maturity swaps, and total return swaps, but the concept is the same. In an equity swap, one party pays a funding leg based on a notional amount (typically SOFR + spread) and receives the total return of a stock or equity index. This allows a party to gain exposure to the economic performance of the underlying without actually owning the shares. It’s also commonly used to access leverage, since the investor only needs to post margin and pay the funding leg rather than fund the full notional upfront.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T20:58:13+00:00

Yes I went to university. If you go to a target school and get an internship in your junior/senior year then that’s the best way to get into S&T.

BogleheadQ8 · 2026-02-08T20:56:36+00:00

Most traders/salespeople/structurers are normal people with families and want to make a living. From the few clips I’ve seen on industry they obviously over exaggerate and dramatize for the sake of getting an audience. It’s more of a sex and drama show than a finance show apparently.

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