Morning Coffee: How Citi is managing the most awkward bit of its new analyst program. The new technology interviews

As we noted yesterday, Citi has begun promoting its analysts to associates in two years instead of three. Citi was promoting some analysts to associates in two years previously, but only the very best ones. Now, everyone will be expedited. Good times indeed!

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Unless, of course, you're a current third year Citi analyst, about to become an associate, in which case you might look askance at the newly promoted associates with up to a third less experience than you and wonder whether their AI prompting skills are really sufficient to close the gap. 

Citi appears to have thought of this issue. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Citi's current third year analysts will be promoted to associate as usual on January 1st. By comparison, the second year analysts who are being promoted early to associates will probably not get the call until around July 2027. 

In this way, the current third years will get a whole year of associate salaries and associate bonuses, whereas the expedited second years will only get six months. Effectively, they are being promoted six months early.

Bloomberg says the move is to stop Citi's juniors leaving for the likes of private equity, but some senior Citi insiders say there's been a constant dribbling out of analysts and associates this year that needed to be stemmed. Shortening the analyst program could help, although Bloomberg notes that January's associate promotions will be 'subject to performance,' implying that nothing is guaranteed. 

Separately, TechCrunch reports that HackerRank, the coding test company that has long been the bane of anyone attempting to get a technology job in banking has developed a new product called Chakra.

This does not refer to a crystal with the ability to solve the Trapping Rain Water Problem, but to a new and dynamic system in which you work through a coding task using a code repository and an AI assistant ("Chakra") that keeps asking what you're doing and introducing new constraints. Sounds great. 

Meanwhile...

Citi will also end its fixed-term employment provision that typically applied to investment banking analysts in North America, meaning those employees no longer have a pre-determined contractual end date. (Financial Times)

Citi is now the top underwriter for IPOs globally (based on the first nine months of the year). Vis Raghavan will be proud. (Bloomberg) 

Dwayne Lysaght says JPMorgan has a "growth mindset" in European investment banking. “We want to instil the mentality that you should not be content to win the race by one second, but by a distance,” said his co-head, Alberto Piana. (Financial News) 

Global M&A revenues also appear to be slowing down. They were $1.7t in Q2 and $986bn in Q3. (Financial Times) 

TRex Bio Inc., an early-stage biotech focused on autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, wants to raise up to $133.3m in an IPO. JPMorgan, Evercore, Cantor Fitzgerald, Stifel and Wedbush PacGrow are working on it. (Bloomberg) 

A woman who became a JPMorgan MD aged 29 is selling her $37bn Palmer Square CLO business to Goldman Sachs for an unspecified price, and now everyone wants to buy a CLO business for the lucrative flow of fees from deals already created. (Bloomberg) 

Three years ago, Dmitry Balyasny took over Balyasny's equities business. Now things have been shaken up and star Balyasny stock picker Ilan Weiss has been promoted to co-head of equities alongside him.  Weiss's team has generated the highest profits in the equities business. (Bloomberg) 

Hedge funds like Taula and Balyasny had piled into carry trades to profit from the difference between interest-rate swaps and French yields. They had to unwind these quickly last Thursday when French bonds slumped. (Bloomberg) 

Critical things to consider when you're writing your CV now. What is the hardest-to-fake evidence that you are good? What have you built or done that gives the interviewer something concrete to ask about? (YoungandCalculated) 

A retired City lawyer, who lives in Wandsworth, south London paid £2k in council tax last year. In April 2028 his bills will rise to almost £9k. "I’ve paid my taxes all my working life, and hoped that my savings could benefit my five children and grandchildren.” (The Times) 

Mamdani: “Socialism to me means you’ll have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that it is the government’s job to deliver on that.... When people say dignity we’re talking about the things that allow you to take a breath. Housing, child care, public transit. No one should be priced out of these things. These are nonnegotiables, you need these to live.” (WSJ)

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