From Main Street to Wall Street

Last week I headed to New York City to the G.A.M.E. II Forum Conference with 9 of my finance undergraduate colleagues. For those of you not acronym savvy, it is the Global Asset Management Education Forum conference hosted by Qunnipiac University.

With over 1,000 finance students attending from over 38 countries, there was no shortage knowledge or monkey suits. With the conference spanning three days, we were exposed to the brightest minds on Wall Street that covered topics from China's questionable growth reporting, U.S. treasuries interest rates eminent increase, and the concerns of gas prices reaching a national average of $4.00.

Moving into our panel discussions, we chose topics that were most relevant and interesting to us. My day consisted of equity analysis, risk mitigation, future of Quant investing, volatility in options, and social media. Wait... hold on a second, social media? Yes, it may be skewed from the mean of the technical distribution, but after sitting in on how social media plays a part in financial markets, it plays a significant role in the way we stay informed.

I had the opportunity to speak one on one with some of the proprietary minds in media. The moderator for the panel Jim Binder, Director of Public Relations at The Options Industry Council, and the four other panelists:

Josh Brown, VP of Investments at Fusion Analytics, and author of Reformed Broker blog,
Dorothy Friedman, Vice President of Marketing at Fidessa,
Ray Pellecchia, VP of Corporate Communications at NYSE Euronext, and
Scott Peterson, Co-Founder of Relay Station Social Media.

The most used social media platforms that these professionals leveraged most were Twitter, LinkedIn and their blogs. The ability to receive information within moments rather than wait until the news arrive on your porch at 5am is changing the way we consume our daily news digest.

Facebook remains a relation based website that is used more as a background check for recruiters than anything else while Twitter remains content-driven. When I asked the pannel where they were positioning themselves with the new fast moving social media companies such as Pinterest? Responses varied, but the overwhelming response was that it is a matter of where their time is greatest utilized, and that being on the more developed platforms.

In my opinion, I believe that every social media platform gives you exposure to a different audience. The more audiences you are exposed to, the more likely you are to recieve referrals and new clients. As in my case, more recruiters looking at me as a potential candidate for their company.

Overall, first trip to New York City was a great experience. Learned a lot and met some extrordinary minds.