Dylan Pham
ISM II: Hedge Fund Management
Ms. Dutton
6 November 2022
Interview Assessment 1
I had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Hisham Salahudeen who is a senior at UTD and an intern at various companies. Currently, Mr. Salahudeen is an intern analyst at Hudson Way Capital Management working in asset allocation. I learned that the desired path of a finance major is to work in investment banking for at least two years and then transfer to private equity or hedge fund management. Mr. Salahudeen has experience with investment banking and private equity managing capital markets and heavy deal flow. He mostly wants to work with the sell-side market which focuses on asset management while the buy-side focuses on buying, developing, and reselling businesses. Venture capital is the most difficult to get into with only around 8-10 analysts, and the second hardest is private equity. IPOs are public companies that are helped by investment banking and with private equity to buy and sell.
We also were able to discuss college and the importance of getting internships. Mr. Salahudeen informed me that business finance is probably one of the only industries that care about what college you attend. He told me that as a finance major, debt should not be first on your list of factors when deciding which college to attend. I was surprised to learn that out-of-state universities give more scholarships than I originally thought. He also suggested that I start finding internships as early as the summer after my senior year. To do this, he recommended cold-calling and reaching out via LinkedIn.
Through this interview, I learned a lot of important terms that will help me understand what I am researching more easily. We talked about the GameStop situation involving short-selling and short squeezing, but I need to gain a better understanding of the topic through research assessments. I would like to learn more about the specifics of buy-side and sell-side markets. I also learned that investment banking seems to be the outlet leading to hedge fund management which I will research in future research assessments and interviews.
Dylan Pham
ISM II: Hedge Fund Management
Ms. Dutton
14 November 2022
Interview Assessment 2
I spoke with Mr. Michael Haddad who is a hedge fund analyst at Praetorian Capital. Coincidentally, Mr. Haddad attended Allen High School and obtained his Bachelor’s in Finance from the University of Texas at Dallas. When it came to discussing college, Mr. Haddad suggested that I attend a more prestigious college that receives a lot of recruiters such as the University of Texas at Austin. This will increase my chances of receiving job offers coming out of college which is crucial for getting into investment banking. Mr. Haddad interned first at a small local law firm and then the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He would then go on to get an internship at a small investment bank leading to a career as an analyst. Even though his options for internships were limited at UTD, he was able to find a few through networking which he placed a heavy emphasis on throughout the interview. He worked as a financial advisor dealing with sell-side mergers and acquisitions which essentially dealt with the selling of privately owned businesses or private equity. Concerning his duties in this job, he worked with the legal team and helped create legal documents. Investment banking was also a temporary job to gain experience in order for him to move onto better paying jobs like hedge fund management. After 4 years of investment banking, Mr. Haddad moved to Puerto Rico to work as a hedge fund analyst at Praetorian Capital where he mostly dealt with CEOs, annual reports, industry overviews, conducting fundamental research in undiscovered businesses, and macroeconomic trends. Praetorian capital mostly day-trades big businesses like Tesla, but makes long term investments in smaller businesses. He placed a special importance on networking and encouraged me to start networking early through clubs, cold calling, and internships. He also suggested that I become acquainted with programs like Excel and become more geared towards accounting as it is, arguably, the most important aspect of business.
This interview helped me learn the importance of choosing a great school that receives recruiters, getting internships, and networking. I was surprised to learn that Forbes actually wrote an article about Praetorian Capital detailing their tendency to fund fraudulent and scheming businesses knowingly. My interview with Mr. Haddad and Mr. Salahudeen shared similarities in their emphasis on internships, networking, and choosing a great university. I also learned the importance of accounting and investment banking in being successful within the business finance world. I appreciate the insight Mr. Haddad gave me in his company and duties as a hedge fund analyst as well as his advice on getting a head start in my career.
Dylan Pham
ISM II: Hedge Fund Management
Ms. Dutton
18 November 2022
Interview Assessment 3
I had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Temitope Akande who now works at Alyeska Investment Group and is the founder of Fyatt. Surprisingly, Mr. Akande worked as an aerospace engineer in aircraft design for 4 years before going to Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his Master’s in Business Administration from Wharton and his Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. In his first summer, he worked in consulting where he learned to hone his consulting skills and work with balance sheets. Concerning his current day-to-day job, he starts his days early to check the news on banks, mortgages, finance, and microeconomic indicators. He also holds a lot of conversations with businesses to see why the markets are moving in the way that they are. The conversations include those with sell-side analysts and researchers. When asked about the strategies his hedge fund uses, he told me that they use shorting a lot as leverage. In addition, Mr. Akande emphasized the importance of research and trying to get the upper hand in intelligence about the market. We briefly spoke about some tools that hedge funds use; call-options are used to predict when the stock will go up and put-options are used to predict the stock will go down. He describes his fund as a market-mutual fund that balances loans with shorts.
When I asked about the importance of the prestige of a college in finding internships and job offers in investment banking, he confirmed past interviews in which they conveyed that more well-known colleges receive better recruiting coming out of college. Mr. Akande wanted to go into private equity and went into consulting during college for the experience. His second summer he went to investment banking. I was encouraged to find a plenty amount of internships and try to make the most of it.
He also added that he genuinely enjoys his job and life, which is refreshing to hear as I take more steps toward this career. When asked about the skills needed to succeed in this field, his response was intellectual curiosity and the desire to learn more. This is a unique response to this question that I have asked before in which Mr. Akande chose to focus on the drive one needs to succeed rather than the soft and hard skills. I believe that I have the drive and intellectual curiosity to not only pursue this career but succeed.
This interview was very encouraging and actually made me excited to get started on my path towards this career, because there are so many opportunities and options to do so. The most appealing aspect of this career was the enjoyability of it and the work-life balance. Concerning the content of the interview, I hope to incorporate the use of shorting in my end of year product in some form because it seems to be a common strategy that hedge funds use.
Dylan Pham
ISM II: Hedge Fund Managament
Ms. Dutton
12 December 2022
Interview Assessment 4
I had the privilege of speaking to Mr. Galanakis who works as a financial advisor. He is a certified independent advisor representative (IRA) and a registered investment advisor (RIA). As a financial advisor, he specifically handles his clients’ investments and asset allocation. He trained in electrical engineering and obtained his Master’s in Business Administration. He began personally investing at 16 years old and has enjoyed it ever since. He has seen the market at its lows and highs. Mr. Galanakis stated that a lot of hedge funds really are just short funds that only use shorting or use shorting so much that it doesn’t balance loans like it should. Long-short funds are considered traditional hedge funds. Macro-funds are those that deal with global currencies, and global events like war or pandemic may affect the global market. Fund-to-funds are when hedge funds invest in other hedge funds and even short these funds. Mr. Galanakis also stated that there was a stigma associated with institutional investors as “smart money” and retail investors as “dumb money.”
When asked about his investment strategy, Mr. Galanakis stated that he has used a wide variety of strategies for different scenarios to discover what strategy worked best for him. He placed heavy emphasis on investing in index funds like the S&P 500 and NASDAQ. However, as of recently he said that the DOW Jones was outperforming both of these. Mr. Galanakis has traded futures, options, and followed trends along with technical analysis. He also helped me define a swing trader as someone who buys low and sells high which is a common strategy for retail investors. Although Mr. Galanakis suggested investing in index funds, there was also the issue of bare markets in which the energy market as a whole, for example, underperforms completely causing the S&P to underperform. There is also an issue of index funds growing sideways which basically means they can dip really low for awhile and rise again, but overall, no money was made over the course of say 10 years. He also believes that technology is the trend right now in creating the most returns. An idea I had never heard of before was the concept of transition years in which the market begins to change completely, and Mr. Galanakis believes this year is one of those years. Concerning reliable sources of information he reiterated that he does not listen to media like CNBC because by the time they report on the market, it is already old news and now doesn’t give anyone a competitive edge as everyone listens to the advice. He suggested many sources of information with Yahoo Finance as an example. He also suggested following trends and sectors as well as ETFs. But overall, your sources of information will depend on your style of investing. For me, Mr. Galanakis recommended investing in index funds along with a market timing system as well as rotating sectors. Lastly, he suggested investing in bonds and avoid shorting as much as I can because it is dangerous. It is important to diversify asset allocation; bonds, international, index funds, dividend funds, etc.
To my surprise, Mr. Galanakis stated that he did not like Apple’s stock and that Tesla was more volatile than Bitcoin. He dislikes Apple because of the influence it has on the NASDAQ and S&P because of the size of the company. He believes that if Apple does not grow, then the NASDAQ and S&P won’t either. Also to my surprise, he suggested that hedge funds might die out because of their underperformance as compared to past years. He believes that mutual funds are dying down and moving towards ETFs signaling that hedge funds may meet the same fate.
This was my most enjoyable and informative interview so far, and I deeply appreciated the fact that Mr. Galanakis seemed very enthusiastic to speak about this topic. Concerning my product, I am leaning more towards the idea of creating multiple types of investment portfolios with different strategies as well as explaining different types of investments I can make in the form of asset allocation whether it be index funds, bonds, international, etc.