If you have an opportunity to move from the sellside to the buyside, now appears as good a time as any. Sellside employees are increasingly worried about their job security and have grown tired with the negative sense of morale in the office. Buyside employees, meanwhile, appear to be doing just fine, at least in comparison.
A new study from Financial News found that nearly 17% of sellside employees consider their job insecure and are worried about being made redundant. Fears are more palpable in sales and trading departments, where nearly one-quarter feel they are at-risk of losing their jobs. The anxiety has begun to weigh on sellside employees. Nearly 40% of respondents report a pervasive morale problem in their office.
Another concern amongst sellside employees is the lack of promotions. No one is quitting, making it harder to find opportunities for upward mobility within the company, according to the survey.
Fortunately, the doom and gloom felt on the sellside isn’t matched on the buyside. Just 7% reported being concerned about their job security, with only 2.4% saying office morale was “very poor.” Hedge funds and asset managers appear to have a big leg up.
Prosecutors have reportedly proposed a settlement offer in its insider trading case against SAC Capital. The range being discussed is between $1.5 million and $2 million, well above the $1 billion settlement offer that was first reported.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has asked regulators to put rules in place that would prevent traders from paying for early access to market-moving data, a legal strategy he calls “Insider Trading 2.0.”
More Stressful Tests (Reuters)
The next round of “stress tests” aimed at assessing banks’ ability to withstand adverse economic conditions will include strict new Basel III capital rules. Banks will have to be even more conservative with their liquid capital.
Freddy Kruger-ish (Business Insider)
The mergers & acquisitions landscape is similar to what it was in the 1980’s, where corporate takeovers and activist investing was the norm, according to J.P. Morgan’s Jimmy Lee and Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman. “Behavior that is non-acceptable, it starts creeping up and becomes more acceptable,” Lee said. “It’s back…it’s like Freddie Kruger,” Schwarzman added.
AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche is still knocking the government for its efforts to block bonus payments to employees in the aftermath of the federal bailouts. The uproar over bonuses “was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that–sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago],” he said. “And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.”
Package Settlement Looming? (WSJ)
J.P. Morgan and regulators are in talks to settle several different federal investigations with one lump payment. The banks is said to be offering roughly $3 billion. The Justice Department wants more.
Credit Suisse Cuts (DeakBreaker)
Credit Suisse has reportedly made some cuts to its prime services and equity research groups.
Buzz Around the Office
A resort in England has banned guests from wearing any form of animal print after animals in its zoo have begun freaking out. You can’t even wear an African wild dog sweater.
List of the Day: Spying Employers
Worried your employer may be spying on you? Here are three tell-tale signs.
- Your boss comments on your social media life.
- Your computer camera randomly turns on.
- Your boss hints at things you’ve said privately.