The shortening of economic cycles

The United States has been in a period of growth since the second World War. However, after the dot-com bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis, combined with a vastly globalizing economic world, the United States may soon see its economic cycles shorten, and perhaps disappear altogether.

The emergence of the BRIC countries as world superpowers means that United States investments will be funneling towards those countries, and so well the funding from European and other Asian countries. What this will implies is that the US market cannot possibly grow fundamentally much more than it already has.

Most of its markets are completely saturated. The Internet was a major innovation, but unless another such innovation arises that allows for dramatically increased productivity, the United States economic system is not expected to break through its previous highs by much. (If it does, it will be a bubble, I can assure you of that).

Economically, most figures, especially unemployment, have not yet signified a complete return to a bullish economy, and it is my cynical view that it never will return back to its pre-recession levels. Right now unemployment may seem high, but it will eventually become the new norm. Infrastructural inefficiencies in the economy have grown over the years, as technology and the internet has cut down on many jobs previously performed by humans, and furthermore, increasing numbers of job-seekers are targeting a narrowing group of 'desirable' jobs. Meanwhile, highly technical jobs that require years of training and special degrees, are being consistently unfulfilled.

Furthermore, the Millenium generation grew up in a quite different environment than our predecessors. This generation spends less, views debt with distrust, and is much less likely to buy a home or marry.

What this leads to is fewer consumption, less demand within the market for luxury goods, and a slowing of the flow of money. The Baby Boomer generation was quite possibly the most spendthrift generation ever, due to the incredible rates of US growth, followed by the easing of monetary and fiscal policy, essentially allowing the baby boomers to spend in excess.

Therefore, as the baby boomers retire and younger generations become the dominant consumers of society, it is unlikely that the United States growth can outshoot its previous highs.

However, the good news is, the recessions are likely to become more and more bearable as a result. With conservative spending habits and an unlikeliness to take on too much debt, especially for new houses or cars, the next generation of consumers are unlikely to allow companies to expand aggressively and artificially inflate expectations. This means that the possibility of a such a ridiculous bubble as in the subprime mortgage crisis, will be reduced as well.

Therefore, reverting back to my main point, the US economy's business cycle seems likely to shorten in the future, and the amplitude of its oscillations will also decrease. I would make a very wide hypothesis right now and that is, I expect market fluctuations to reach a small, target range, on the Dow from around 11000 to 13000 by 2025, where the market is unlikely to break out of either range, completely smoothing out any market cycles.

How to get a front-office investment bank job

I've always been a big fan of writing. I personally love writing and recently rediscovered my passion for writing short stories and novels. As a composer by hobby, I also enjoy writing music, but that is another subject altogether.

Majoring in Finance, I've been looking for a finance job, since last year. Too bad I haven't really found a good one yet.

The market is especially harsh on people who don't have their act together. As a college student, you must decide by the end of Sophomore year exactly what you want to do. That is a mandatory deadline. Ignore it at your own peril.

By the second semester of your junior year, you must prepare yourself for the onslaught that is summer internship recruiting. Your one goal: Getting front-office internship at an investment bank. Fail this part, and you just made things ten times harder for yourself.

Once you get your summer internship, of course, you can relax. Do a good job, and the chances of you getting a full-time offer is almost 100% for the next year. Believe me. Of course, this is assuming the market doesn't crash and your division gets shut down or whatever.

If you didn't get a great internship, you can kiss your full-time front-office dreams good-bye. During the first semester of senior year, all the big banks come together in September and scour the year's graduating class for full-time analysts.

If your GPA is above a 3.6 and you have some kind of investment bank front office internship experience on your resume, expect to get a LOT of calls. You're going to get interviews left and right, and by the end, you'll have your pick of offers to accept.

On the other hand, if you did not fulfill those requirements, expect to have a long, lonely, and troublesome job-hunting process. You will have to send out 40, 50, 60 applications, before you even get one response. You will have to network like crazy and even then, you'll get shut down left and right.

Believe me when I say, it's not pretty.

Three front-office positions are really the only ones going for - they are Investment Banking, Sales & Trading, and to a lesser extent, Wealth Management. Within each are a variety of analyst positions, related to sales, trading, research, etc.

Choose carefully because you won't get another chance. Banks will shut you down like a nerd on prom night, if you don't know at least which division you want to choose.

Attend as many networking sessions as you can, of course. Be open, be unafraid, be confident, and put yourself out there as much as possible. Develop a thick-skin, barricade yourself with a wall of mental steel, and charge out into the battlefield as if the entire animal kingdom suddenly decided that you were dinner tonight.

Read as many job hunting books as you can and talk to as many people as you can. Ask anyone and everyone you know if they know someone who can refer you to a job. Job-hunting for the hottest entry-level jobs is cutthroat. Either you have it, or you don't.

Even if after all of this, you can't seem to get that job you want, lower your standards. Settle for less. Don't worry, it's not the end of the world. Sure, you're not going to be making 100k on the get-go, but having any job is better than no job.

But if you want to ignore the pain and the shame of this process, stop fooling around and start studying, no matter what position you are. Job-hunting is a lifelong process, and your job-hunt begins the minute you step into this world.