A Day in the Life of an Investment Banking Person

One of the most sought-after jobs on Wall Street is investment banking. It is also among the most difficult. It should be no surprise that an investment banker’s typical day is lengthy and demanding. Those who make it through the adjustment stage have lucrative careers. Analysts in investment banking may put in up to 100 hours a week at some companies, according to Joseph Stone Capital.

Morning Procedures

A new employee who gets through the confusion and nerves of the job settles into a routine. Emails, texts, and business meetings typically fill the mornings. Clients, coworkers, or senior bankers may send you messages asking you to double- and triple-check every status report, presentation, and calculation.

A Prompt Start

Thankfully, workdays begin pretty late. The capital markets do not open until 7 a.m., but because the bankers worked until midnight the previous evening. Before going to work, an associate might have time to shower, have breakfast, and exercise. Many investment banking employees have a long commute because their occupations are in urban areas. Evening work is frequently quicker and less meticulous than morning work. From around 9:30 in the morning until lunch, colleagues and analysts concentrate on corporate studies and carry out changes that senior employees have asked for after assessing the previous day’s work the last evening. A junior banker may have some downtime on quiet days to catch up on the news and sports, but there isn’t much time for social media as investment banks have firewalls to block distracting websites.

Afternoons

Lunch is a pleasant 45-minute to hour-long stretch at a nearby deli or the workplace cafeteria unless the day is busy. These get typically shared with equal-level coworkers. The hierarchy is frequently rigid. When the associates get to their workstations, the analysts on their team have revised their models and presentations. Before sending these documents back to the analysts, the associates analyze them, make any necessary changes, and then send them back. Both analysts, who get pressurized to meet the needs of the managing directors or directors and colleagues eager to demonstrate their value to the deal, find this procedure difficult.

The Actual Deal

The active deal is the main focus of the afternoon’s activity, according to Joseph Stone Capital. Senior bankers are rigorous about details and assign one offer at a time, or the “live deal,” to many investment banking teams. The company cannot afford to make mistakes in initial public offerings (IPOs) or merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions because they entail millions or even billions of dollars.

Evening

There are two parts to the second half of the workday: before supper and after. Analysts insist that associates finish their job by early evening so it may get examined again because the work done before dinner is more planned and predictable. On a typical day, assessing the morning’s set comes after dinner. The last hours have been spent by analysts and senior bankers reviewing the information and producing “comments,” which occasionally call for significant modifications.