Morning Coffee: Charmed life of the 29 year-old credit traders. Senior banker’s 3 month paid holiday

There is a sweet spot on credit trading desks right now. To find it, you need to be experienced, but not too experienced. You need to be junior and cheap, without being naïve and under-valued. You need to be familiar with electronic trading systems. And you need to be young(ish).

Fulfil all these conditions and you will, suggests Business Insider, find your services to credit trading are considered indispensable. Too many credit trading desks at too many banks had become “top heavy” with MDs who weren’t really doing much, one credit trading “veteran” tells BI. These MDs are now being cleared out to make way for the next generation.

It’s the VP-level credit traders – typically aged around 29 – who are benefiting from the upheaval. As their most senior traders and salespeople disappear, banks need to appease unnerved clients by giving them access to knowledgeable mid-rankers. Pay for VPs is rising as a result. “Gone are the days of cheap VPs," says David McCormack, chief executive of Wall Street search firm DMC Partners. "Really good VPs can make more than directors."

Separately, Peter Nielsen, the former global head of markets at the Royal Bank of Scotland, has shown how to lose your job in style. Bloomberg reports that Nielsen is leaving RBS as it restructures and reduces its markets business. Nielsen’s official exit is sometime this summer. Until then, he’s on around three months’ gardening leave – fully paid.

Meanwhile:

A credit derivatives trader at Goldman Sachs just left for a hedge fund. (Bloomberg) 

Nomura hired Scott Rosenthal, and ex-Morgan Stanley FX options trader in London. (FXWeek)

Nomura’s US business is hiring a group of bond traders and salesmen from J.P. Morgan to replace part of a Latin America credit-trading team that defected to Jefferies Group last year. (Bloomberg) 

Morgan Stanley wants to hire 75 advisors to target rich Latin Americans in the US. (OnWallStreet)

Credit Suisse wants to hire 200-300 wealth managers outside Asia and Switzerland in the next few years – mostly in emerging markets. (WSJ)

Citigroup's head of commodity research for Asia, Ivan Szpakowski has left the bank in Hong Kong to set up a macro hedge fund in New York. (Reuters) 

Are you a MiFID II specialist? Buy-side firms in London are in sore need of your talents. (Financial News) 

When Wall Streeters become involved in kids’ sports: “We’d love to build a destination playground.” (Bloomberg)

Goldman Sachs still soliciting youth on Snapchat. (Adexchanger)

Ex-J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank guys are now running the finances in Argentina. (AFR) 

All that is good about Shanghai. (BBC)

Thin women and tall men earn more. (Telegraph) 

Body odour could become an issue at Barclays. (Telegraph)

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