What’s up Beaverland!
As the summer has progressed I have found myself turning into an old man. It seems every single day my routine is exactly the same, which I have yet to decide if I like or not. I typically wake up around 6 AM and turn on sports center and/or CNBC to gear up for some of the actions in that day’s market. Next, comes the typical morning duties that I don’t believe I need to list out. I find myself making the same exact turkey sandwich every single day with the same yogurt, chips and banana. I leave for work and stop at the same Dunkin Donuts and get the same medium dark roast iced coffee (black of course). I get to work around 8:30 and eat my breakfeast in the kitchen in the office with the WSJ and typically hit my desk around 9. After a long, exciting day at the office I leave around 5 and go straight to the gym. Next, typically involves an enormous meal and by this time it is around 7 PM the start of the Sox game. I typically make it to about the 5th inning before I start dozing off sitting up. Around 11 my mother typically wakes me up and says go to bed. I usually go to bed, but since I was napping I am not tired and typically will read until 2 AM. I then wake up and repeat these same things over again. Now this may seem like a typical routine (which it is) however, one day I asked myself am I happy with this? Do I really want to do the same thing over and over again. Is this really what the real world is going to be like?
Now it’s hard to really change the routine in terms of what I do outside of the job as there’s only so much I can do between the hours of 6-10 after work. However, while I am at work, which is the majority of the day is where I have been trying to change things up a bit. I realized very quickly that I have the opportunity to learn more than what I am expected too, if interested. I also realized halfway through the internship I pretty much learned as much as I am going to in terms of what I was trained on and it was up to me, individually, from there to sort of go above and beyond the call if I truly wanted to obtain more knowledge….and then the light bulb went off..
Prior to the internship I knew I had a clear interest in the equities markets as I have a personal investment account where I do small trades. As a UBS employee, I have been granted access to the entire analyst intranet, which means I have access to thousands of articles and even analyst reports on everything from the state of the economy, equities, forex, bonds and more. In my off time this summer, I have been doing a substantial amount of reading on different trading techniques and different ways to evaluate a stock. In order to sort of bring this internship experience to the next level I opened an account on a hypothetical trading simulator (fake money) and started trading. I have been taking this simulator very seriously as I have actually been trying to be a portfolio manager and and pick winning stocks. I must say, thus far I have done incredible. Just with my limited knowledge and the resources that I have access too such as morningstar research tools and bloomberg I actually would have made myself a significant amount of money over the course of this summer. I typically spend all of my down time while at work whether it be in between projects, going in early or staying late simply just reading articles and checking out different stocks. I am very pleased that I have taken this upon myself as now I feel I am much more knowledgeable than the typical finance student, which will only make me more competitive for a job upon graduation. Not to mention I plan on taking the Babson College Fund my senior year.
This little bit of excitement has sort of made the routine ok with me as the one thing that is not routine at all is the market. It’s sort of funny I find myself checking my portfolio more often then checking my facebook. I know what’s going to happen tomorrow morning and I know what’s going to happen throughout the day at work and even tomorrow night. However, I have no idea what tomorrow’s market is going to be like and what changes may or may not have to be made to my portfolio and this little hobby of mine, though very educational makes my days not COMPLETELY routine and for that I am thankful.
RB
