"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 2, 8:04 pm, "ATP*" wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message

...





"ATP*" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

The NYT says starting salaries for freshly minted analysts in areas
that
deal with risk, such as hedge funds, are running up to $200,000/yr.
That's *starting* salaries.

--
Ed Huntress

I think that's a very small number of the best Wharton grads, or at the
quant funds like Renaissance, exceptional math PhD's. In addition, the
bottom may be about to fall out of that market. But I agree the
compensation is incredible. Private equity firms charge 2% of money
under
management and 20% of net gain. Many of these funds are over a billion
dollars and the firms may consist of relatively few employees whacking
up
a pretty big prize. Makes the rest of us wonder why we didn't even
think
of a career in finance......

As you say, though, it comes and goes like the tides. At one time a seat
on the NYSE was a license to print money. Then it started to go south,
and
various kinds of arbitrage took its place, ending with risk arbitrage
(Robert Rubin's former career). Then it was currency, and then a few
other
things, and, today, hedge-fund and private-equity-fund management.

Those jobs aren't very transferable so you have to make it quick. In
some
of those jobs, it's assumed you will commit suicide or quit before
you're
50. They give huge bonuses and it's very déclassé to spend them. You're
supposed to save $10 or $20 million or so for your early retirement.

It's not for me, although there are times...

--
Ed Huntress

I don't know, I think as an entire sector, the financial industry in the
metro NY area has been incredibly good to a LOT of people over the last 25
years, not just the high stakes traders on the floor. Of course, I'm just
seeing that now and wondering why I never considered it as a career when I
was younger.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ask those tens...or make it hundreds of thousands of financial workers
who are being RIFed because of the housing bust...with more to follow.

They have mortgages to pay every month...and educational loans to
repay...just like everyone else.

TMT

I'm thinking of higher level employees- I don't doubt that many of them are
overextended but they had a really good run and should have had some pretty
decent equity built up.