Thursday, June 16, 2005

Today was a good day

Finally, some good news on the job hunt!

I was studying at the library for the CFA today. I was busy taking notes on the Econ section for the test and I was making some good progress. My phone was off and I missed a few calls. One was from the Associate Trader position out in Oakland. The process with this job has been a bit frustrating. They contacted me before I left on my trip and after a mix-up we rescheduled a phone interview. I passed the phone interview before I left for the trip and I was told I should expect an email after I came back detailing when the next interview will take place. Then another mix up: person A was suppose to email me but the job switched over to the hands of person B (who was the first person to contact me, then I think left the company according to another HR person). Anyways I guess A didn't tell B that someone was suppose to email me about the next interview. So I spent a few days calling (they are in Boston) and finally got a hold of A who told me about the switch. It was a lot of back and forth but they were both extremely pleasant. Back to today: she left me a message about setting up an interview with the head trader and two other executives for sometime next week. She also emailed me, so I emailed her back letting her know when I was available (basically any time of the day, any day of the week). I chose Monday or Tuesday, and I'm faxing her my application.

This might be a good time for a new paragraph. Okay so the job seems pretty good. Basically to sum it up: the outsourced portfolio managers send in the orders and the traders put in the orders and make sure everything in the portfolios are in order. Plus other duties.
The pay is on the low side of the average range (38-40k) and it has full benefits. They also will reimburse $6k worth of education per year, which is a great thing because I can then take some classes. I also like the hours: stock market hours so 6:30 to either 2:30/3.
I'm excited about this one; now I just need to concentrate on the interview and not screw up (easier said than done).

Then I also had another message from a different firm. I applied for a Research Assistant position a little over one week ago. I think I actually applied twice because they kept putting up the same posting every other day on various websites. Well, maybe that paid off. I don't know too many of the details besides the fact that it is stock market hours, some admin duties, and it seems like a good fit for me. It was after 5pm when I listened to this message, and I will call tomorrow in the morning to hopefully set up an interview.

Besides the good news on the job front, I had one of my best days this year in my portfolio.
Two of my stocks finished the day strong. EBF announced some great results and finished the day up $1.24 (or +7.52%). LB also had a strong day and had an article in IBD (which can be both good and bad). For the day it finished up $0.99 (+6.19%).
With the market around 0% for the year, I'm ahead by 8% (more on a time weighted basis).
EBF is finally in the plus for me, and hopefully it moves up a little more. I have about a 14% gain in FRX. LB is my big winner with a plus 54% gain. NCC is up marginally, while NTE is down marginally. UNTD began in my portfolio with a nice 5% gain, but after the downgrade awhile back it's my big loser (down 9%). Overall, I think things are going well. I wouldn't mind getting out of EBF in the near future.

1 comment:

savingadvice said...

Thanks!
I definitely will need some good wishes!