Personal Contributions

Based on the work that I have completed to date, as well as the processes I’ve been involved in at my site – I would say I’ve had a few tangible contributions, as well as some non-tangible contributions. 

My first real contribution was a report on the energy sector, in particular the ETF XLE, which has a variety of different components. I put together a report on how it performed over the last week, along with pertinent information for each individual holding such as upcoming announcements and deals. It was a clean, professional looking report as one thing that I’ve observed is that perception has a lot to do with things and in a client facing role, appearance is everything.

Another project I worked on was a comparison between three securities as well as the analysis for why they performed the way they did relative to each other. This was a cool project as it was the first time I had really used Bloomberg to pull and integrate data within an Excel spreadsheet. The analysis was solid and hopefully impacted the greater team by giving them some insight into the types of correlation between the securities and why they exist. 

Leadership studies at Richmond has definitely come in handy, especially for being able to think critically. Sales and Trading is very strategy based and knowing how to problem solve and look at things from all perspectives has sure been helpful in adding value to my team. One thing I hope to secure for myself is an opportunity to pitch a trade idea. Interns each have a mandatory pitch but I’d love to try and come up with something outside of what is required. 

Overall, I’m loving the experience and definitely hope to gain a full time offer after the summer. The work is very interesting and exciting and I can feel myself growing and stepping out of my comfort zone. We are almost always on a call with someone and I’ve definitely gotten better at being less awkward and just facilitating good conversation and I look forward to continuing to better myself and learning as much as possible.