April 8, 2007
Analysis at 80% Off the Going Rate
One interesting article in Barron’s Mutual Fund Quarterly (Whose Bread I Eat, His Song I Sing) issue this week about outsourcing stock and bond research to India:
“According to the Tabb Group, which tracks research outlays, buy-side firms in the U.K. and the U.S. spent more than $15 billion on research last year. From 2000 through 2006, Tabb reckons, the number of sell-side equity analysts fell in the U.K. and U.S. by more than 40%, to 9,300. And even as the number of Americans taking the chartered-financial-analyst exam fell by 25% in that period, the number taking it in India rose fivefold.”
Maintain your US Dollar short positions.
Cat: | Time: 2:26 pm (utc+8)
April 8th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Hey,
Below, you indicated “regrets” of getting an MBA. Exactly how serious was this? Now, you do conceede that it’s “price of admission” in some sense, and one needs to play the game.
But practically speaking, can you elaborate on the negative sentiment?
1) Do you feel you learned little to nothing valuable?
2) Was it all stuff that can be easily learned independently from textbooks? (No labs, guided research, nothing truly profound/complex, etc)
3) Did it give at least *some* “job skills”? Or ultimately just networking and a necc. evil for filtering?
>>>>>I should have taken the money spent on business school and leased a Bloomberg terminal and explored it for fourteen months instead. With the savings, I could have gone to night school at DeVry in New Brunswick and learned how to program instead. In other words, I could have done something useful and productive, instead of getting a stupid MBA. Live and learn. (My son will know better.)
April 9th, 2007 at 10:46 am
MFC: Dead serious, and I’d have to write a long post about it to explain everything. 1) I learned almost nothing of value that I 2) couldn’t have learned on my own given the right direction (books, problems, cases, etc.). As you know from your comment, the MBA has *nothing* to do with job skills and everything to do with filtering.
April 9th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Please write a post describing/summarizing your thoughts on your MBA.
* What is was, and wasn’t.
* How it helps today, and how it does not help.
* What kinda of jobs it IS good for (manager, sales, etc), and what kinds of jobs it is NOT (finance, quant, trader, portfolio mgr??)
April 9th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Ouch a 40% decline in a profession in a few years. Good thing we lawyers have this medieval guild licensing thing going on. They’re trying to send law gigs to India but it’s a tough nut to crack.
If I had a son I’d tell him to go into the skilled trades: electrician, plumber. Can’t do that from India. Nuts to this going to school for years and years.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Bhh: Yes, well there was a terrific bear market from 2000 to 2002 which accounts for a lot of that drop … I’m 100% behind you on the “learn a trade” front.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
mine was a complete waste of time except for the friends made. than again it was asu
a great post about overall US weakness continuing.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
howard: At least you got your MBA at a place where you could simultaneously improve your golf game.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
It’s easy for a white collar person to sit in his Ac cubicle and promote a blue career trade. However, DO a trade for a year (nevermind 30), and see if you still feel that way. You won’t.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
My wise old project manager (white collar), who used to lay tile on the side, once said to me: if you know how to use your hands and brain, you can make a lot of money.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
MFC,
Companies only want to know that you were smart enough to have gotten INTO a certain program, not that you necessarily LEARNED anything there. That doesn’t mean that MBA’s are useless. A lot of Wall Street-type jobs (investment banking, some sales) require an “MBA from a ‘top program’”. Quants will need a Masters/PhD in math/physics/quant finance.
Full disclosure: I have an MBA and will be taking part 3 of the CFA exams in June.
April 11th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Math_Finance_Coder,
I think all formal education boils down to is this:
If you are smart and disciplined enough to get into a top program, you are basically smart and disciplined enough to learn the material on your own.
The only real added value that the top programs offer are things that you have little or no access to by yourself. For example the professors, the classmates, the alumni connections, and the connections that the school has with employers and venture capitalists.