Jobs that should benefit from recent events, and jobs that shouldn't

What with the political uncertainty in the UK and the rescue, or not of the euro, interesting times are back.

Given the high degree of uncertainty, it is difficult to predict who will do well and who won't. Nevertheless, we have attempted this below.

Beneficiaries

1) Salespeople and traders

Crisis seems may have been staved off in the eurozone, but last week's big spike in volatility and ongoing uncertainty regarding sterling could still be good for banks' sales and trading operations.

Yesterday, Derek De Vries, an analyst at BofA Merrill upgraded Deutsche on the grounds that, "The current market environment should be favorable for investment banks with large credit operations," and that, "Wide spreads, panicked selling, and volatility are all positives for trading desks with good risk management practices."

De Vries said the note was written prior to the EU's action, but that volatility plus liquidity is generally good for market makers. Other analysts agree. "I'd expect that banks will benefit from client activity," says one. "The big question is whether they will also take a hit on their inventory."

Dirk Hoffman Becking, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein points out that FX traders would benefit massively from the disintegration of the eurozone: "FX trading would completely explode if we had a break up of the euro and the establishment of new curriencies."

2) Risk

Risk jobs were hot already; the threat of another financial crisis won't be doing anything to make them cooler.

It helps that, according to Keith McCullough of HedgeEye Risk Management, risk management models have mostly been working well with regards to the sovereign debt crisis so far.

3) Anyone working at the FSA

FSA staff who were expecting their lives to be turned upside down following the election of a Conservative government, have been given a reprieve. Neither the Liberal Democrats nor Labour want to turn the FSA's responsibilities for banking regulation over to the Bank of England. A minority Conservative administration, or Conservative-Liberal coalition, are likely to have more pressing issues to deal with.

Losers

1) People at HSBC, Standard Chartered, Barclays, RBS

Both the Lib Dems and the Conservatives favour a Glass Steagall-style separation of banks into trading and retail arms.

This is not good news for the banks mentioned above. However, they can take solace in the fact that the Conservatives have said they won't proceed with a break-up unless other countries do so too. Labour, meanwhile, wants to keep them intact.

2) Anyone in M&A or ECM

As we noted last week, the climate of uncertainty is not good for doing deals. It is especially not good for IPOs, which are subject to mass postponement. The Financial Times notes that $30bn of IPOs have been postponed so far this year, five times higher than the average this decade.

3) High frequency traders

Last week's glitch/algo meltdown/outbreak of high frequency probably won't do high frequency traders any favours in the long term. There's already talk of new electronic trading rules being introduced.