Top 4 Tips for QFin Students

Here are my top four tips any for students in quantitative finance.

Tip 1. Keep up with the headlines

It's important to keep up with the headlines, even during your studies. Knowing the most important stories will build the foundations for your future career and create interesting conversation points with practitioners in networking events. These topics might also come up during job interviews.

Regarding quality sources of information, the easiest is to read the article titles (only) in the Financial Times (the "FT"). I also recommend reading Nikkei's Week in Asia, which is tailored to our region. It is not necessary to have a subscription or to delve too deep into the articles while studying, but most university libraries will have access to the FT or the Wall Street Journal. Both also offer student discounts; I recommend signing up before you finish your course.

While the 🇬🇧 Financial Times is usually deemed the most neutral and is the most respected financial newspaper, be aware of the other main financial newspapers: the 🇺🇸 Wall Street Journal is the reference in North America, the 🇯🇵 Nikkei is the reference in East Asia, and the 🇦🇺 Financial Review is the reference in Oceania. There are also national newspapers in most countries and territories. The 🇨🇳 Caixin is the reference in China.
When you start working, if you continue in markets, you will likely switch to Bloomberg, which is more technical - and much more expensive, although your company will pay for it. You can access their website to see the headlines for free, and listen to their podcasts ("Daybreak Asia Weekend" is excellent, it's also on Youtube and the Saturday one is the weekly summary) to get a sense of what's on the news. Check out my other podcast recommendations if you have more time.

Tip 2. Get the basics right

I don't have an exhaustive list of need-to-learn, but while there is no expectation that you master technical analysis or be the best programmer, it's good to get some basics right. Here are some websites I find helpful.

Investopedia is a good glossary. When you don't know what a technical term means, it's a reliable resource.
For basic vocabulary and technical analysis, you can look at the intro classes of Babypips (they're free, and there is already way too much there!). It also gives you the gist of basic terminology such as pips, bips, etc. The website focuses on foreign exchange, but the concepts are the same for other markets.
For coding, practice makes perfect. Kaggle has many fun challenges to learn how to code,and they provide data.

Tip 3. Know your (key) facts

Here is a non-exhaustive guide to try to quickly situate who does what when you meet a practitioner or an interviewer.

Market participants are either market-makers, such as banks; or market-takers, such as funds. It's also called sell-side and buy-side. The roles are very similar in both.
Most participants in financial markets will have an area of expertise. "Bulge bracket" banks dominate the primary market, but the same banks might be weaker in foreign exchange. Trading houses are the dominant participants in some commodity markets but have no presence in equities. This is even more true for some multi-strategy hedge funds where each team, called "pod", operates like an independent company.
Markets are usually classified as primary or secondary. Investment banks and private equity work on primary markets. Trading divisions, and some funds will work on secondary markets. Sometimes, we differentiate secondary markets as the large exchanges, tertiary markets as the regional exchanges and quaternary markets as the high-frequency trading venues.
Asset classes are equities (stocks) or FICC. Historically, only equities and bonds were "conventional", but this is changing. Within FICC, you have interest rates (also called "rates" or "Fixed Income"), and which include bonds; currencies; and commodities. Digital assets do not fit within this traditional classification and are part of what we call alternatives (real estate is another member of this class of assets).
Products are usually classified as either "cash" or derivative instruments. Companies often have different teams for each. Most assets are either traded by electronic or "voice" teams.
Roles are most often either sales or trading. A quant can either be a trader or closer to a developer, they are also called "strats" sometimes. Structurers are almost only present in banks. Portfolio managers are only present on the buy-side.
Titles vary greatly from company to company. The same title could correspond to very different levels of seniority from one bank to another, such as "Vice President" for example. A number of years of experience is usually a better indicator, with junior below 3 years, intermediate above 7 years, and senior above 10-12 years.

Tip 4. Know your (key) figures

While I doubt any interviewer would ask you these explicitly, showing you know some key indicators and are up to date will help you better understand the headlines and have richer conversations with practitioners.

Names of central banks each country's central bank has a different name or nickname. The central bank regulates the money supply and interest rates. The most important ones are below.

	Name	Nickname	Comment
🇺🇸 USA	Federal Reserve	Fed	sometimes referred to as the "FOMC", which is the rate-setting committee
🇪🇺 Eurozone	European Central Bank	ECB	not all EU countries are in the Eurozone (e.g. Denmark)
🇯🇵 Japan	Bank of Japan	BoJ	pronounced "Bee-oh-Jay"
🇬🇧 United Kingdom	Bank of England	BoE	also called the "Old Lady"
🇨🇳 China	People's Bank of China	PBoC
🇦🇺 Australia	Reserve Bank of Australia	RBA

There is at least one central bank for each currency (except for cryptocurrencies, obviously, but this is another conversation...).

Interest rates you must know the latest US Federal Reserve interest rate (there are actually two rates, which are "boundaries") because it is the most important in the global economy. It is helpful to know if the Japanese, European and British rates are above or below the one of the US.
Key people Financial news assumes you know who the governors of the leading central banks are and will just quote their names. They have different titles in different countries. In the 🇺🇸 US, the head of the Fed is called Chairman; in 🇬🇧 England and 🇯🇵 Japan, Governor; and in the 🇪🇺 Eurozone, President.

Stock indices Nobody will ask you to know the exact value of a given index. But you should know the names of the most important indices.

	Main Indices	Comment
🇺🇸 USA	S&P500, NASDAQ, and Dow Jones	indices are often called by their ticker in the US
🇪🇺 Eurozone	EURO STOXX	Europe still maintains different indices by country, EUROSTOXX is across the Eurozone only
🇯🇵 Japan	Nikkei	named after the newspaper
🇬🇧 United Kingdom	FTSE	pronounced "footsie", named after the Financial Times newspaper
🇨🇳 China	CSI	takes stocks across both Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges
🇭🇰 Hong Kong	HSI	the Hang Seng also comprises mainland Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong

Foreign exchange it's good to have a ballpark of 🇪🇺 EURUSD and 🇯🇵 USDJPY, at least for your holidays. 🏖️
Commodities have a sense of where 🪙 gold trades (it's the price per ounce) and same for 🛢️ oil (it's per barrel). Most trade for futures contracts, and you will see different prices per location, too - just get a rough idea. The reason why commodities matter is because they have an outsized impact on the "real" economy and supply chains. Gold is also specific in that it is deemed a refuge against inflation, so XAUUSD (how many USD per gold contract) is a measure of the purchasing power of the US Dollar.