Global Markets Summer Intern Review

I participated to the 2024 Summer Internship in Global Markets. As an Intern I have been tasked with several projects during the length of the program. Projects were desk-specific and included the elaboration of some trade ideas, as well as the analysis of a specific product or market environment. in terms of day-to-day tasks, during the day I had the chance to meet several people across the floor, shadow some sales and traders, work on my project(s) and briefly discuss my results. Some sessions were also scheduled and included desk overviews, advises from senior managers and some teaching sessions. The first week has been focused on some trainings in preparation of the summer internship.

Yes, every time you shadow a trader you can have an inside view of the products they are trading and how they react to news in the market. But what helped the most has been the work on trade ideas. Thanks to both trade ideas and projects, I've improved my capacity to present my ideas in a more brief and immediate way, to value the different risks and think outside of the box. New skills include the more technical aspect of the job, such as some specialties of that sector (seasonality patterns, investor positioning etc) and how to use VBA and Python to leverage the existing data and find some patterns.

Given the role, we were not able to take an hands on approach (such as trade or sale a product), so the responsibilities have been rather limited. However, for some projects I have had the chance to interact directly with senior people, a fact that helped me to have more exposure, not just with my team but also across desks. Overall, I think it has been well balanced given the limitations that the job requires.

Both my Teams has been very supportive, despite having limited time during market hours. During the internship, I think we received support also from other teams, for example in building trade ideas and hear their thoughts on it. For more structured products, I received some useful material that helped me to get an initial overview of the product, and then discuss about the specific details with my manager. I think this approach have been really useful.

I think this has been one of the main strengths at Nomura. People here have been really supportive and outgoing, and a relatively flat structure allowed us to interact with a wide range of people, not just junior but also seniors. I have done other internships in the past, but the aspect I appreciated here was a constructive approach. It helped me to understand my main strengths and in which areas I have room for improvement.

I really liked it. It has been quite intense given also the length of it: however, I feel like I learned a lot in a short amount of time, dealing also with time pressure and time management. Additionally, the summer period looks like a suitable candidate to do this kind of experience given less market activity. Some people were on holiday which may be an issue, but I still had the time to meet them as soon as they came back from holidays.

Yes

I think the best advice I can give is to cultivate a creative mind and think outside of the box, and do not be scared to apply even if you have a relatively lower experience. What I noticed here is that everybody tends to specialize in something, and if you work well you can give your value added in a specific area. So don't be scared to apply if you feel you may be better in something, you will have the chance to learn it on the job as soon as you start.