Besides Luck, what brain type for finance?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I have a specific question regarding Finance, as it pertain to finance and Economics majors.</p>

<p>I know two individuals. I was wondering which one as a better “brain” for finance, specifically, ibanking, hedge funds, financial analysts.</p>

<p>Just how much math is necessary to succeed in finance or banking? What type of thinking is important? For example, I know somebody who is very intuitive, not very detail oreinted, good lateral thinking. but has bad recall (and thereby struggled through calculus due to an inability to pull cosine out of the air to substitute into an equation at the right time, also had problem in Calculus-based physics but not algebra based physics). This same individual got through calculus by sheer memorization of different types of problems, and thinks they will succeed in finance, but how likely is that? This individual thinks from big to small picture, and therey has problems in lecture where they go from small details to big picture.</p>

<p>I know another individual (his brother, actually) who is a mathematical genius, doesn’t even need to do homework to get A’s on calc and diff. equ. tests, but can’t see the big picture and can only go from small to big when being taught math. Bad lateral thinking, great logical thinking, OCD and detail oreinted, very ridged and strucutured.</p>

<p>What are your guy’s thoughts?</p>

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<p>A photographic memory and excellent math skills will allow you to go far with the technical side of finance jobs. </p>

<p>Good people skills - I saw those mostly on the marketing and sales side. </p>

<p>Frankly, neither of them sounds like they have the perfect mix of skills, although i would put my money on the math geek.</p>

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<p>Depends upon the job. I-banking is primarily sales. You have to be a people person. A lot of them are dumb as …, and couldn’t figure out the deal if you handed it to them. But, that is what staff is for.</p>

<p>So, if you are the brains behind the business, what do you need? Ability to think outside the box. Anyone can copy the last deal. Just because you can do the math doesn’t mean you have the ability to put the pieces together differently for the next deal. Where some people see limitations, other people see ways around the limitation. The trick is being ethical in the way you get around the limitations.</p>

<p>Investment managers/analysts - again, need to think outside the box. See the potential and risks that other people do not see.</p>

<p>Risk taker - no pain, no gain. When you are right, you have to have the conviction to act on it. Milksops need not apply.</p>