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Bank of America: A Day in the Life of a Sales and Trading Analyst

Want to learn more about what it’s like to work in the Sales & Trading division? Analyst Henry Brooks, an analyst in the Sales and Trading division at Bank of America, explains how quantitative results drive his daily routine.

 
 

I don’t really have an average day. Although I work in the Sales and Trading division, I’m not a salesperson or a trader. Rather, I work to understand how electronic purchasing patterns in thick markets can be leveraged to help understand trading behavior. In other words, while my days differ significantly, the end goal is always to efficiently collect market data to drive conclusions.


My workflow once I show up at the office is dependent on the needs of upper management and the line of business I am working in. On the more technical side, management might need me to set up a database system that can easily spot data outliers. I also might work on a project that looks at how data is actually stored in these databases. What my day looks like is often based on the exact question that I need to answer.


While the exact question I’m answering varies significantly, I can say that every day I need to look at the big picture: what is the landscape of the market that I’m understanding? How is this landscape changing and what can we learn from these changes? Answering these big picture questions can easily last me all day -- my average work day is around 12 hours.


Around lunchtime I step out and grab lunch. The convenient location of our office means that we always have our choice of options. A lot of my colleagues also take a short walk to lunch -- it’s nice to get outside. By noon you’ll catch me strolling Bryant Park, grabbing a bite to eat and bringing it back to the office.


After lunch, I keep working on my individual projects until the end of my workday, normally around 11pm. It’s not always work, though. I find time to exercise a few times a week at the Harvard club -- it’s right next door to our office in Bryant park. Our office also has a pretty good gym, and a lot of people who don’t belong to the Harvard Club use our office gym since it’s convenient. Even though I have many long days, I make sure to keep time to myself to rejuvenate and stay healthy.


Working at Bank of America gives me access to an unprecedented amount of resources.

Working at Bank of America gives me access to an unprecedented amount of resources. On the technical side, the amount of data that I’m able to analyze on a regular basis is hard to find anywhere else. The human resources are also incredible -- I work with very talented peers and my network has grown tremendously. My industry is also a big part of why I love my job. The fixed income sector is undergoing rapid transformation with unprecedented changes. Furthermore, the COVID epidemic, while tremendously hurtful, provides an interesting time to be following macroeconomic policy and the unprecedented actions of the Federal Reserve System to stabilize markets.


The COVID epidemic, while tremendously hurtful, provides an interesting time to be following macroeconomic policy and the unprecedented actions of the Federal Reserve System to stabilize markets.

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