Future of Market risk roles

[myron va]

Hi,
I am a mathematics and economics student at a target university in the UK. I have currently been offered two summer internships in market risk on exotic derivatives desks. The work itself is not quantitative (at least that's what I've been told) but I've seen posts on market risk on this forum before so I thought this might be a good place to ask this questions:

What does the future hold for market risk jobs? I have heard reports of large-scale automation of market risk roles, much like what's happening to some trading desks. I was wondering whether taking this internship (and then proceeding through the graduate scheme in market risk) would be a bad idea and whether I should instead pursue a different career.

 

[vertigo]

i suppose it is good to stop the virus infest your brain before it... infests your brain. working in market risk, internship or graduate scheme, will let you develop the mathematics & economics skills you learned at university in a practical sense. that's enjoyable and you will learn a lot.

the work not being quantitive may be driven by you having to do some of the more 'simple' tasks, that perhaps a monkey can do. guess what? it's like that in every industry. market risk is itself extremely quantitative, as are any trading desks, never mind exotic desks. the point is, the role will be quantitative in one way or another.

dont believe the large scale automation of market risk roles too much. a robot cannot produce a model or a robust methodology, and even if it did it can get it completely wrong (look how many HFT firms die).

there will be more regulatory work in the quant space and in the market risk space - developing the FRTB requirements, for example. you will find that regulators are morons but the work itself is interesting.

unless you get a front office role (trading, structuring, quant) or find yourself in asset/portfolio management, then i would say market risk is a good career for you. you can move into other areas.

 

[yetanotherquant]

>I have heard reports of large-scale automation of market risk roles
Well, some day they also may build the SkyNet