Random Rants & News

We just got back from our first complete day of company visits and presentations.  After taking the tour of teh NYSE in the morning, we visited Deutsche Bank at 60 Wall Street.  We had the pleasure of meeting with Kevin McQuilkin, a senior director of DBs Mergers & Acquisition business unit.  He shared with us some of his insights into the industry and filled us in on his own career backgroun.  In addition to Kevin, we were able to meet with two junior financial analysts on his team, as well as the head of college recruiting.

The visit was extremely valuable to myself and the other students and gave us the opportunity to ask questions about Deutsche Bank’s business and entry-level financial analyst positions with the firm.

Following the visit and presentation at Deutsche Bank, we visited the Avenue Capital Group.  At Avenue we were able to sit down with Richard Shinder, another undergraduate alumni of Gonzaga University.  Richard works in the firms financial distress unit (side note: Chelsea Clinton is actually working on his team).  He has  a wealth of industry experience and was the lead in Blackstone’s efforts to revive Enron and bring it back from bankruptcy.

Rich’s insights were very helpful to the students and I was happy to have the opportunity to spend some time chatting with him about his firm and his role in the distressed finance unit.

We concluded our day with a fantastic dinner at Cellini, and enjoyed a keynote presentation by J. Victor Cain, founder and Chief Investment Officer at the Treflie Funds.  While his work is also in teh area of hedge funds (like Richard), but his former work experience is in the commodities business, which I find extremely compelling and fascinating.

Quick update on our first excursion.  We just completed a tour of the NYSE trading floor, as well as a seminar about the history and workings of the NYSE.

The Director of Education, Murray Teitelbaum, was so kind to introduce the group to the various market functions and technical trading functions on the floor.  The insights we got went far beyond anything I had ever learned in class and I appreciated getting the insight scoop on NYSE.  I found the history and background about the company itself most insightful.

After the seminar we were able to watch the trading floor from the gallery between the CNN and Bloomberg Booths. It was amazing being in the room, seeing, hearing, and feeling the excitement and flurry of activity going on below us.  All in all, a fascinating experience and I can recommend to everybody to get a group together and sign up for a tour.

Deutsche Bank is next, followed by Avenue Capital, and dinner at Cellini!