One day, it seems, Wall Street will be full of the good guys trying to save the planet. For the moment, though, there’s just a normal cross section of the good and the not so good, and the good are mostly marked by the kind of empathetic human-on-human interactions that differentiate nice people everywhere.
If you’re trying to work out who these nice guys are, research firm Greenwich Associates can point you in their direction. Greenwich just released its new list of the ‘most helpful’ fixed income traders and analysts on Wall Street, according to U.S. institutional investors, who were canvassed in the three months from March 2019.
Of course, being charmingly helpful to clients may not equate to being charmingly helpful in daily life, but it at least suggests that people on Greenwich’s list below are capable of very winning ways.
1. Joseph Leary at HSBC
Leary has been HSBC’s New York-based head of government bond trading since January 2017, when he joined from Deutsche Bank. Leary was voted the most helpful trader in the government bond market.
2. Olivier Pariente at Bank of America
Pariente is a U.S. rates trader who’s been at Bank of America ever since he left Deutsche Bank (after just one year) in 2016. Before that, he was head of U.S. rates swap trading at Morgan Stanley.
Pariente was voted the most helpful person in the rates derivatives space.
3. David Ligon Miller at Nomura
David Ligon Miller is an executive director at Nomura, where he’s been for over seven years. Previously he was at BNP Paribas for two. Ligon Miller is married to a makeup artist who’s worked on the face of Donald Trump. He’s very nice to his clients in the agency securities market.
4. Chris May at Morgan Stanley
Chris May was promoted to MD at Morgan Stanley in 2018 after working for the firm for around 17 years. He’s super-helpful if you’re an investment grade credit investor.
5. Michael McBride at JPMorgan
McBride has been at JPM since 2005. Clients say he’s especially charming when you’re investing in high yield credit.
6. Mike Eilert at Credit Suisse
Eilert is head of US par loan trading at Credit Suisse, which hired him from Deutsche Bank in 2017. He’s pretty friendly if you want to trade leveraged loans, say clients.
7. Mike Lee at Bank of America
Lee is co-head of distressed debt trading at Bank of America and clients say he will be nice to you if you’re trading distressed debt. Lee’s niceness pays: in 2016, Megan Messina, a former head of structured products at BAML said Lee earned $4m+ in the years 2013 to 2015 inclusive.
8. Justin Weinberg at Jefferies
You’ll find Justin Weinberg being all kinds of helpful if you’re trading emerging markets debt. Weinberg is an emerging markets trader focused on Latin America at Jefferies.
9. Kamal Ramnani at Goldman Sachs
Kamal Ramnani is one of only two Goldman people on Greenwich’s ‘most helpful’ list. He’s a CLO trader who’s been at GS since 2015 and his helpfulness will hit you if you’re trading CLOs.
10. David Sklar at Bank of America
David Sklar is a director in Asset-backed Securities Trading at Bank of America, where he’s worked for eight years since leaving Harvard. He’s not only charming, but also regularly feted for precociousness by Forbes. And he looks a bit like a film star. He’s going to be very helpful if you’re trading consumer ABS. Sklar is one of six nice Bank of America people listed, more than at any other bank.
11. Ashwin Goyal at Morgan Stanley
Goyal is a VP in Morgan Stanley’s CMBS trading team in New York. He’s been at MS for eight years, honing his niceness.
12 and 13. Alex Putterman at Credit Suisse and Matt Spoerlein at Bank of America
These are the guys to go to when you want to trade non-agency RMBS securities; clients said they’re the nicest people in that market.
Putterman is a VP who’s been at Credit Suisse for six years and who previously worked for Bridgewater (don’t let that put you off). Spoerlein is a director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
14. Chris Burnett at JPMorgan
Chris Burnett is an executive director at JPMorgan, where he’s worked since Bear Stearns (where he was a managing director) sank in 2008. He’ll be very helpful if you’re trying to invest in an agency MBS CMO product.
15. Dennis Jang at Citi
Jang is an agency MBS trader at CIti where he’s worked since graduating from Brown in 2019. He’s going to be a good person to know if want to invest in agency MBS pass-throughs.
16. Bryce Pickering at Barclays
Bryce Pickering is your caring-sharing muni trading man. He studied at Harvard and joined Barclays earlier this year. Bryce is pretty deep. On this page, he says: “I am progressing forward on my journey that never began and does not end.”
17. Matt Hornbach at Morgan Stanley
Hornbach is the first of the strategists to be pulled out for their helpfulness. He’s been at Morgan Stanley since 2000 and is currently global head of interest rate strategy at the bank. Clients say he’s super-helpful if you want rates research.
18. Eric Beinstein at JPMorgan
Eric Beinstein is another nice guy at JPMorgan. He’s been there for a huge 33 years and is head of U.S. high grade credit research and strategy. He’s very pleasant if you want some advice on investment grade credit investing.
19. Brad Rogoff at Barclays
Brad Rogoff is an MD at Barclays, where he’s been ever since leaving Lehman Brothers. He’s been known to host colleagues and clients for five-a-side football tournaments in the MetLife stadium, which might contribute to his likeability.
20 and 21. Jane Brauer at Bank of America and Javier Kulesz at Jefferies
Brauer and Kulesz are charmingly helpful if you’re looking for an emerging markets strategy. Brauer is an emerging markets quant analyst and has been at BofA since graduating with a PhD from Stanford. Kulesz is an MD at Jefferies who joined from Nomura in 2015.
22. Dave Preston at Wells Fargo
Dave Preston is head of CLO and Commercial ABS research at Wells Fargo and investors say he’s very nice if you want advice on investing in CLOs. Preston’s LinkedIn photo suggests he’s not such a great guy to hang around with if you’re a fish.
23 and 24. Theresa O’Neill at Bank of America and Amy Sze at JPMorgan
O’Neill and Sze are nice strategists to know if you’re interested in the consumer ABS market. O’Neill is an MD at Bank of America. Sze is an MD at JMorgan.
25. Richard Hill at Morgan Stanley
Richard (Rich) Hill is Morgan Stanley’s head of Head of U.S. CRE Research (Equity & Debt). He’s been at Morgan Stanley since 2013, when he joined from Greenwich Capital and was promoted to MD last year. He’s known for being all kinds of nice if you want some CMBS research.
26. Paul Nikodem at Nomura
Nikodem is your man for non agency RMBS research. He’s been at Nomura since around 2010 and is clearly happy there.
27. Vipul Jain at Wells Fargo
Hit Vipul Jain up if you want some research on agency MBS. Vipul, who has a CFA Charter is, “highly regarded by clients for his expertise in both Agency and non-Agency RMBS research,” said Wells when it hired him in 2016. Clients say he’s highly regarded and very helpful.
28. Vikram Rai at Citi
Vikram Rai is head of municipal strategy at Citi, where he’s been since 2008. Rai started out as a programmer at Sun Microsystems. He’s a good guy to clients, but he’s not the sort of good guy who advises against investing in ‘bad products’. In 2017 he got kind of frustrated with investors who were avoiding tobacco bonds.
Sarah Butcher – Read more on efinancialcareers.com
