Morning Coffee: The very best place to work in banking in 2016. Why women are steered into sales jobs

Where must you work in investment banking if you want to have a really great time next year? Is it M&A? Is it fintech? Or is it, maybe, a combination of the two? - Yes.

You probably don't want to work in any old area of M&A in 2016 because, as Boston Consulting Group has explained, the signals are flashing red. - Every other time that M&A has accounted for a proportion of GDP similar to the proportion it's hit in 2015, there's been a bursting of the M&A bubble shortly after.

Equally, you probably don't want to work for any old fintech firm in 2016, because most of them pay very badly and are a quick method of committing career Hara-Kiri.

However, the fintech sector needs to consolidate. It's also still growing, with robo advisors and data aggregation start-ups expected to provide continued fare for dealmakers for years to come. Therefore it's great for M&A bankers who specialize in fintech. So says Investment Week, which is predicting an "acceleration" in fintech M&A next year. You heard it second here: become a fintech sector specialist, now.

Separately, we're not alone in remarking upon the preponderance of women in investment banking sales roles. Speaking to Euromoney, one former female FX professional at Goldman Sachs says she started in sales instead of trading and that many of her sales colleagues were women too. "There is no good reason why women can’t be traders, but I think the problem historically is that there was a tendency for women at junior levels to get directed to sales," she says. Another male trader says this was unsurprising given that spot FX trading was historically a, "Laddish, simplistic, blunt, brutal, male-dominated," area and that the women who went into finance were usually very smart.

Meanwhile:

More bad news for fixed income sales and trading jobs and bonuses: Bank of America and Citi both say the fourth quarter has been bleak, although it's been less bleak than last year. (WSJ) 

Morgan Stanley has made some big cuts to its credit desks. (Reuters) 

You will make more working in private equity than working for a hedge fund. (The Tally)

BNP Paribas is making a lot of people redundant in the middle east and cutting 30% of its Bahrain office. (Arabian Business) 

Rich Ricci, ex-head of Barclays Investment Bank, is rumoured to have invested £7m in a betting company. (Evening Standard)

Banks aspire to use quantum computers costing $10m each. (Bloomberg) 

You did not get the job because you are too handsome. (Telegraph)