I'm a bank regulator, this post resonates so hard. The irony is that these trends are obvious to anybody with a brain who pretends to be even remotely rational, which excludes basically every banker I've met (C-suite or not). When the industry is surviving almost solely bc of non-interest income (service charges, fees, etc), that's an industry that is ripe for tech disruption and deserves to be replaced.
CEOS and CCOs scramble to find yield on loans anywhere they can, but at the end of the day they can't see the forest for the trees. Layoffs are happening in huge numbers as they realize their days of profitability are dwindling.
Wow incredible insight from a guy who actually works as a regulator! Will be fascinating to watch and would love your input on anything you can provide about what you are seeing
May put together some thoughts later when I get some time. But from a trend standpoint you guys are on top of it (as usual), and from an end-game perspective banking will be mostly defunct in the next decade. I do think people are too quick to predict the total demise of industries (thinking banking will be dead in 5 years is dumb. But. That's the direction it's going).
Also if anybody is in school looking for a decent paying job that gives you tons of free time to work on a side biz, bank regulation is a great pick, state govt or FDIC/Fed. Can't speak on OCC as I haven't interacted with them. A week's worth of work can be done in 5-10 hours, incredible job security, low stress.
Yeah people overestimate how fast things change in the shot term and *underestimate* how much changes in 10 years. Same concept though and you can see why we're trying to get everyone out of the scam ASAP
Never knew this. Easy to see the big picture of technology replacing most of it. Great lesson I learned in college was about tech related to television sets and the related peripherals. Over time, more consumers would want tvs integrated with everything and not want separate devices. Made sense then and it makes sense now.
I’ve spent the last 4 years developing software that automated acquisition and LBO financial modeling. My models are gorgeous, bottoms up, and the most detailed while maintaining elegance.
Just upload excel financials in any format. Scrub for the lines you want to keep and then enter our “turbo tax” process for building a model. Usually takes anywhere from 15min - 1hr depending on how detailed you want your revenue and expense builds to be. And they always look the same and are indistinguishable from a long form LBO that some analyst would make in a few days+. Moreover anyone who somewhat understands business and finance or accounting can do it.
Most people here about it and say …”but no way you can account for…how could deal with…too much variability.” And the answer is for 90% of any scenario in modeling we can handle it. The years were spent understanding how this isn’t chess…it’s bind-able. And the esoteric cases we can’t accommodate we allow the user to set up white space so he can spend another 15-30 min doing his weird extra nuance.
It can either cut serious time out if junior finance peoples lives or change their mandate entirely. It’s a matter of time until we complete merger models and other types. It’s a small niche market unless corporate America begins using it.
Would love to speak with anyone interested in checking it out.
Can attest to the decline on the trading / public equities side.
- Equities trading, absolutely desperate for volumes, need to make P&L with their own book (vastly reduced after '07) else don't really get paid much.
- Equity sales, new faces every 6-12 months. Only senior people making $$ from relationships formed back in the day.
- Research, completely subsidised by investment banking, only there as means to obtain M&A/IPO fees. I may or may not know a few stories that would trigger a regulatory investigation. Team size compressing and becoming more Junior. Competent people long gone to HFs.
Most people on those roles think "you will still need us to sell shares/bond". What they miss is that their business lines are being subsidised (by retail banking/M&A), they are quite expensive to employ, and profitability for the entire sector is compressing... that sounds like an explosive clown-like mix.
Bull - from your infamous "navigating wall street" post, the only tier 1 positions were M&A, HFs, LO PMs.
As of late you are only bullish M&A. Not recommending Hedge Funds roles anymore?
Not much anymore most of them underperform badly. Not sure why you would go into that role and the amount of constant barrage of being "on" all the time makes it a lot harder to start a biz on the side.
I'm curious to know how this slow bleed down of the banks will affect the consumer side of the banking business-- credit cards, auto loans, etc. Will the banks push harder in to retail loans with higher margins (+20% on credit cards) to try and cover their losses? I'm ignoring mortgages, because current rates are below inflation.
They will probably try to charge more fees yes. Another example is by ramping up the printing press more things will require a wire transfer = more fees
I just wanted to note that on your last part you mention "Why are the fees so high?". Would you not say that the current fees in ETH or other crypto are high, especially in peak times? Unless of course you are implying that the cryptonerds will fix fees in the future (parachain, sharding, lightning network etc). Love your work!
Spot on. Really appreciate the clear and concise value proposition of DeFi and how the financial sector will inevitably get replaced with code. Are there other sectors you are actively looking into/see a lot of opportunity for code to replace the status quo? Insurance, law are obvious ones but still very much in the early days.
Thoughts on private equity job out of college? Been lucky enough to snag a PE summer analyst program as an undergrad. Job is based in SG/HK, covering greater Asia and Southeast Asia where lots of inefficiencies that have yet to be exploited. Though US token flows slight lower by 10/20% compared to traditional M&A banking, hours are good, currently building an online side business as well. Thanks.
I have a close friend that runs a small wealth management shop. In the beginning of the year, he called me to help answer some of the questions his clients were ringing him off the hook asking about Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Legally he is not allowed to buy or sell crypto for his clients, at least that's what he says. He is older, doesn't understand the tech and is probably near retirement soon. I'm young, follow this substack and want to make another revenue stream.
Could I leverage this scenario and provide a bullshit TA course paired with some educational resources related to the origins/fundamentals of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other defi protocols? Same caveat though, he nor I would manage their crypto assets.
Is this an opportunity or something that's more trouble than its worth?
You could just charge them for teach ins on the topic. If you want to sell scammy TA classes that will earn *you* money but it will screw everyone who buys it.
To make this crystal clear. Selling chart trading classes for Forex/Crypto make the *business owner* rich and screws every single customer as they are too dumb to realize it's a scam. In that case you're catering to idiots no HNW individuals
Thoughts on Strategy Consulting as a career vs M&A Banking from a skillset perspective? Feel like banking gives you more hardcore modeling skills vs Strategy Consulting providing a broader exposure to business situations and skills (business case modeling, DCFs, market sizing, analyzing large purchase data sets, etc.)
For those of you who will ask, there is definitely tangible value in private equity. For those not in finance private equity (PE) is buying a company, fixing it up and reselling the company in a few years - similar concept to fixing and flipping houses.
Some of these values include making the company operate more efficiency by cutting all bloat and opex and the value is seen with the return when the company is sold.
Yeah half of the returns are due to cheap debt though lol. Basically able to buy a company with 3% debt and just fire everyone or fix how it runs. Usually just gut for cash flows and bleed.
It makes "money" but doesn't always add value to society. Depends on how it is run
Adding that it can add negative value to society too. PE in healthcare creates all kinds of bad incentives. Software more recently too - PE firms bleed out companies, which means getting rid of security professionals, so hacks and breaches happen more often.
Recommend everyone read "The Big Short" to get an idea of how banks really work (packaging derivative junk debt into attractive high-rated products) and how stupid/negligent some of the ratings agencies/underwriters/regulators are...it would be comical if it weren't so grave with trillions in debt and people's lives intertwined.
Now Bull, I agree with your thesis. But due to the MAGNITUDE of money tied up in banks (and debt purchased by the Fed in order to print money), wouldn't we be talking mass societal calamity after systemic bank failures? And at that point wouldn't governments/central banks do "whatever it takes" to preserve the existing system? And how do average people who don't understand how to set up a cold wallet suddenly mass adopt crypto?
At that point you get hyperinflation - while that's good for crypto, do you agree the societal impacts of such a scenario are absolutely horrifying?
Big questions - not trying to be a doomer, but systemic bank failure would be catastrophic (unless we transitioned to a decentralized system before that happened).
Heard Saylor give an interesting interview where he believes in 10 years $USD will still be the world reserve currency, but it would be backed by Bitcoin as a stable store of value with limited supply.
1) whatever it takes just dilutes the value of Fiat again so over time crypto ends up as a better store of value.
2) Average people won't onboard until the UI/UX improves. This is no different than 56K internet. People said it would fail then and they were wrong because it scaled and become more efficient (crypto no difference since it is software code)
3) No. When the music industry was displaced more jobs were created by the internet than taken away. When Banks/wallstreet are displaced more *CREATOR* jobs will be created.
The people who grew up rich and have no skills? Yes they are screwed. But that's a fairer society anyway. Equal Opportunity, Unequal Results.
Appreciate the detailed reply and agree with you on all points. Need to remember Bitcoin was created in part as remedy to 2008.
I still have concerns about the overwhelming existing debt and the current power structure trying to hold on.
Anyway, at least we can work towards building a better world for The Jungle and expand out - am so looking forward to seeing what actually happens on 2/2/22!
Should be self-evident but does in fact need to be stated. Over the last nine months I've learned the hard way that in some cultures (Asia) this is incredibly difficult to get across.
How do you see this playing out for other market participants such as traditional stock exchanges, rating agencies, transaction law and auditors? How do these guys adapt to the incoming change? Until what year do you see the Bulge Brackets having an ECM/DCM division?
All of that stuff will be replaced by code. Literally *ANYTHING* that is a contract is just going to be code (that is multiple multiple years away)
They can't too dumb and behind the times and have to give up control which they wont also regulatory issues (see comment from guy above)
No clue on how long it lasts, we put 2035 for a reason by then this stuff shouldn't really exist. We're not going to predict exact years, you can go find liars and fakes who sell scams for things like exact year predictions
Thanks, you got that right. Does it make sense to exit Banking today to go down the Enterprise Sales role (currently interviewing for Customer Success Manager roles at a large financial services data provider like BBG, eventually transit into Sales) while building e-commerce on the side?
Would say depends on your banking role in terms of work life balance and comp. If you’ve got a decent gig with 60hrs (which I think what majority of ECM is based on what I heard from friends) at most and good pay why would you leave that and enter completely new industry, have to prove yourself, build political capital, etc? Just bleed it dry and work on ecom on the side. You should aim to exit corporate within 5 years anyways so enterprise sales/banking don’t matter long term
There are likely many reasons why banks cannot attack or undermine the cryptocurrency sector. One of the largest LEGAL reasons barring them from doing so is The Volcker Rule, in particular:
1) It prevents banks from investing in covered funds
2) It prevents banks from investing in inadvertent investment companies
3) The internal cost for banks to invest in any cryptocurrency while complying and standing up to audits that would avoid violations of the Volcker Rule
By law, banks have to be very conservative regarding investments post '08 Financial Crisis.
Here is some interesting reading material on the matter (PDF report link at the bottom of the page):
I'm a bank regulator, this post resonates so hard. The irony is that these trends are obvious to anybody with a brain who pretends to be even remotely rational, which excludes basically every banker I've met (C-suite or not). When the industry is surviving almost solely bc of non-interest income (service charges, fees, etc), that's an industry that is ripe for tech disruption and deserves to be replaced.
CEOS and CCOs scramble to find yield on loans anywhere they can, but at the end of the day they can't see the forest for the trees. Layoffs are happening in huge numbers as they realize their days of profitability are dwindling.
Wow incredible insight from a guy who actually works as a regulator! Will be fascinating to watch and would love your input on anything you can provide about what you are seeing
May put together some thoughts later when I get some time. But from a trend standpoint you guys are on top of it (as usual), and from an end-game perspective banking will be mostly defunct in the next decade. I do think people are too quick to predict the total demise of industries (thinking banking will be dead in 5 years is dumb. But. That's the direction it's going).
Also if anybody is in school looking for a decent paying job that gives you tons of free time to work on a side biz, bank regulation is a great pick, state govt or FDIC/Fed. Can't speak on OCC as I haven't interacted with them. A week's worth of work can be done in 5-10 hours, incredible job security, low stress.
Yeah people overestimate how fast things change in the shot term and *underestimate* how much changes in 10 years. Same concept though and you can see why we're trying to get everyone out of the scam ASAP
Never knew this. Easy to see the big picture of technology replacing most of it. Great lesson I learned in college was about tech related to television sets and the related peripherals. Over time, more consumers would want tvs integrated with everything and not want separate devices. Made sense then and it makes sense now.
I’ve spent the last 4 years developing software that automated acquisition and LBO financial modeling. My models are gorgeous, bottoms up, and the most detailed while maintaining elegance.
Just upload excel financials in any format. Scrub for the lines you want to keep and then enter our “turbo tax” process for building a model. Usually takes anywhere from 15min - 1hr depending on how detailed you want your revenue and expense builds to be. And they always look the same and are indistinguishable from a long form LBO that some analyst would make in a few days+. Moreover anyone who somewhat understands business and finance or accounting can do it.
Most people here about it and say …”but no way you can account for…how could deal with…too much variability.” And the answer is for 90% of any scenario in modeling we can handle it. The years were spent understanding how this isn’t chess…it’s bind-able. And the esoteric cases we can’t accommodate we allow the user to set up white space so he can spend another 15-30 min doing his weird extra nuance.
It can either cut serious time out if junior finance peoples lives or change their mandate entirely. It’s a matter of time until we complete merger models and other types. It’s a small niche market unless corporate America begins using it.
Would love to speak with anyone interested in checking it out.
This is too real having spent hours mastering Dcf models. Automation will kill so many roles
Can attest to the decline on the trading / public equities side.
- Equities trading, absolutely desperate for volumes, need to make P&L with their own book (vastly reduced after '07) else don't really get paid much.
- Equity sales, new faces every 6-12 months. Only senior people making $$ from relationships formed back in the day.
- Research, completely subsidised by investment banking, only there as means to obtain M&A/IPO fees. I may or may not know a few stories that would trigger a regulatory investigation. Team size compressing and becoming more Junior. Competent people long gone to HFs.
Most people on those roles think "you will still need us to sell shares/bond". What they miss is that their business lines are being subsidised (by retail banking/M&A), they are quite expensive to employ, and profitability for the entire sector is compressing... that sounds like an explosive clown-like mix.
Bull - from your infamous "navigating wall street" post, the only tier 1 positions were M&A, HFs, LO PMs.
As of late you are only bullish M&A. Not recommending Hedge Funds roles anymore?
Not much anymore most of them underperform badly. Not sure why you would go into that role and the amount of constant barrage of being "on" all the time makes it a lot harder to start a biz on the side.
I'm curious to know how this slow bleed down of the banks will affect the consumer side of the banking business-- credit cards, auto loans, etc. Will the banks push harder in to retail loans with higher margins (+20% on credit cards) to try and cover their losses? I'm ignoring mortgages, because current rates are below inflation.
They will probably try to charge more fees yes. Another example is by ramping up the printing press more things will require a wire transfer = more fees
I just wanted to note that on your last part you mention "Why are the fees so high?". Would you not say that the current fees in ETH or other crypto are high, especially in peak times? Unless of course you are implying that the cryptonerds will fix fees in the future (parachain, sharding, lightning network etc). Love your work!
The autists will fix it of course. Just like 56 speed internet, now we have satellites
lmao
Spot on. Really appreciate the clear and concise value proposition of DeFi and how the financial sector will inevitably get replaced with code. Are there other sectors you are actively looking into/see a lot of opportunity for code to replace the status quo? Insurance, law are obvious ones but still very much in the early days.
Where can we get your books from?
Thoughts on private equity job out of college? Been lucky enough to snag a PE summer analyst program as an undergrad. Job is based in SG/HK, covering greater Asia and Southeast Asia where lots of inefficiencies that have yet to be exploited. Though US token flows slight lower by 10/20% compared to traditional M&A banking, hours are good, currently building an online side business as well. Thanks.
Thats fine it's the same as being in M&A in terms of skills
I have a close friend that runs a small wealth management shop. In the beginning of the year, he called me to help answer some of the questions his clients were ringing him off the hook asking about Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Legally he is not allowed to buy or sell crypto for his clients, at least that's what he says. He is older, doesn't understand the tech and is probably near retirement soon. I'm young, follow this substack and want to make another revenue stream.
Could I leverage this scenario and provide a bullshit TA course paired with some educational resources related to the origins/fundamentals of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other defi protocols? Same caveat though, he nor I would manage their crypto assets.
Is this an opportunity or something that's more trouble than its worth?
You could just charge them for teach ins on the topic. If you want to sell scammy TA classes that will earn *you* money but it will screw everyone who buys it.
To make this crystal clear. Selling chart trading classes for Forex/Crypto make the *business owner* rich and screws every single customer as they are too dumb to realize it's a scam. In that case you're catering to idiots no HNW individuals
Thank you, Bull.
Thoughts on Strategy Consulting as a career vs M&A Banking from a skillset perspective? Feel like banking gives you more hardcore modeling skills vs Strategy Consulting providing a broader exposure to business situations and skills (business case modeling, DCFs, market sizing, analyzing large purchase data sets, etc.)
No. Doesn't make enough money. No one listens to us though been saying this for years
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/bowtiedbull-faq-will-be-updated-over
You might be new so please see Q&A
For those of you who will ask, there is definitely tangible value in private equity. For those not in finance private equity (PE) is buying a company, fixing it up and reselling the company in a few years - similar concept to fixing and flipping houses.
Some of these values include making the company operate more efficiency by cutting all bloat and opex and the value is seen with the return when the company is sold.
Yeah half of the returns are due to cheap debt though lol. Basically able to buy a company with 3% debt and just fire everyone or fix how it runs. Usually just gut for cash flows and bleed.
It makes "money" but doesn't always add value to society. Depends on how it is run
Adding that it can add negative value to society too. PE in healthcare creates all kinds of bad incentives. Software more recently too - PE firms bleed out companies, which means getting rid of security professionals, so hacks and breaches happen more often.
Recommend everyone read "The Big Short" to get an idea of how banks really work (packaging derivative junk debt into attractive high-rated products) and how stupid/negligent some of the ratings agencies/underwriters/regulators are...it would be comical if it weren't so grave with trillions in debt and people's lives intertwined.
Now Bull, I agree with your thesis. But due to the MAGNITUDE of money tied up in banks (and debt purchased by the Fed in order to print money), wouldn't we be talking mass societal calamity after systemic bank failures? And at that point wouldn't governments/central banks do "whatever it takes" to preserve the existing system? And how do average people who don't understand how to set up a cold wallet suddenly mass adopt crypto?
At that point you get hyperinflation - while that's good for crypto, do you agree the societal impacts of such a scenario are absolutely horrifying?
Big questions - not trying to be a doomer, but systemic bank failure would be catastrophic (unless we transitioned to a decentralized system before that happened).
Heard Saylor give an interesting interview where he believes in 10 years $USD will still be the world reserve currency, but it would be backed by Bitcoin as a stable store of value with limited supply.
It won't end up being a systematic collapse but a slow bleed over to Web 3.0. Just like the internet replaced businesses over a long period of time
1) whatever it takes just dilutes the value of Fiat again so over time crypto ends up as a better store of value.
2) Average people won't onboard until the UI/UX improves. This is no different than 56K internet. People said it would fail then and they were wrong because it scaled and become more efficient (crypto no difference since it is software code)
3) No. When the music industry was displaced more jobs were created by the internet than taken away. When Banks/wallstreet are displaced more *CREATOR* jobs will be created.
The people who grew up rich and have no skills? Yes they are screwed. But that's a fairer society anyway. Equal Opportunity, Unequal Results.
Appreciate the detailed reply and agree with you on all points. Need to remember Bitcoin was created in part as remedy to 2008.
I still have concerns about the overwhelming existing debt and the current power structure trying to hold on.
Anyway, at least we can work towards building a better world for The Jungle and expand out - am so looking forward to seeing what actually happens on 2/2/22!
M&A: "There is *actual* value here."
Should be self-evident but does in fact need to be stated. Over the last nine months I've learned the hard way that in some cultures (Asia) this is incredibly difficult to get across.
How do you see this playing out for other market participants such as traditional stock exchanges, rating agencies, transaction law and auditors? How do these guys adapt to the incoming change? Until what year do you see the Bulge Brackets having an ECM/DCM division?
All of that stuff will be replaced by code. Literally *ANYTHING* that is a contract is just going to be code (that is multiple multiple years away)
They can't too dumb and behind the times and have to give up control which they wont also regulatory issues (see comment from guy above)
No clue on how long it lasts, we put 2035 for a reason by then this stuff shouldn't really exist. We're not going to predict exact years, you can go find liars and fakes who sell scams for things like exact year predictions
If you work in ECM/DCM (maybe that's why you're asking) you want to be out within 5 years if you're smart and go into e-commerce/affiliate marketing
Thanks, you got that right. Does it make sense to exit Banking today to go down the Enterprise Sales role (currently interviewing for Customer Success Manager roles at a large financial services data provider like BBG, eventually transit into Sales) while building e-commerce on the side?
Bull hasn’t answered yet so will give this a try.
Would say depends on your banking role in terms of work life balance and comp. If you’ve got a decent gig with 60hrs (which I think what majority of ECM is based on what I heard from friends) at most and good pay why would you leave that and enter completely new industry, have to prove yourself, build political capital, etc? Just bleed it dry and work on ecom on the side. You should aim to exit corporate within 5 years anyways so enterprise sales/banking don’t matter long term
This
There are likely many reasons why banks cannot attack or undermine the cryptocurrency sector. One of the largest LEGAL reasons barring them from doing so is The Volcker Rule, in particular:
1) It prevents banks from investing in covered funds
2) It prevents banks from investing in inadvertent investment companies
3) The internal cost for banks to invest in any cryptocurrency while complying and standing up to audits that would avoid violations of the Volcker Rule
By law, banks have to be very conservative regarding investments post '08 Financial Crisis.
Here is some interesting reading material on the matter (PDF report link at the bottom of the page):
https://www.milbank.com/en/news/part-2-blockchain-and-the-volcker-rule-are-cryptocurrency-companies-covered-funds.html