r/financial

Hi,

(I posted this in another subreddit but was not getting responses so thought I would come here)

I wanted to come here and ask about something real quick. I was on instagram and I saw a post regarding a school's finance internship outcomes and the students that have earned the outcomes. I noticed that this school is ranked top 40-50 for business/top 50ish overall and that several students were landing internship offers at JPMorgan, Citi, a few at Goldman Sachs, some at Hedge Funds, and clearly I am starting to think ranking does not matter. Why is there so much hype around going to a target school or Wharton when kids at the top40-50 are landing the exact same internships. Isnt this great? It goes to show school name does not matter but some people say it is one of the factors that is main. If so many people are landing IB/WM/S&T offers at these schools that are t40-50, it does not matter where you go right?

Financial institutions love to showcase their commitment to “risk management” through endless compliance training — videos, attestations, quizzes — but the behaviors they reward tell a completely different story. The essay argues that this is Safety Theater: the appearance of control without the incentives to support it. Employees quickly learn that bending rules to hit targets leads to promotions, while strict compliance slows performance and gets sidelined. When scandals happen, leadership blames individuals instead of the incentive structures that produced the behavior. If you want to know what a financial institution truly values, don’t read the policies — watch who gets rewarded.

So this summer I will do an 8 week internship and it will give me $8000. I already have $2000 in my savings account from last year.

I discussed taxes with the distributor, and they said that this is considered a fellowship/scholarship, and that my yearly income isn't high enough, so I won't be taxed

I want to know what to do with my $8000 in savings. So far with my $2000 I have invested in some stocks. Honestly, I have not made any money (actually lost $500 from my original $2500), and I have no idea how to invest.

So far, this is what I plan to spend my money on:

Savings: $6000

Food: $500

Transportation: $300

Clothing: $700

Gifts for my mom: $500

Shipping: $500

My mom is paying for my housing, and I will be in DC, so all of the fun things I can do are basically free. I have $700 on clothing because i am 19, and I have been wearing the same clothes since I was 12. I want to try something new.

The majority of my transportation budget is for the $220 Amtrak ticket to and from DC. I go to college in DC, but I never had to pay for transportation during the school year. I don't really know if the DC metro will add up or something.

I have $500 in shipping because I forgot to sign up for summer storage and I have to ship everything in my dorm home.

I'm reading about Moelis & Co. Wikipedia describes it as "a global investment bank that provides financial advisory services to corporations, governments, and financial sponsors." In what sense are they a bank then if they're just advising on other people's transactions? Do they invest in stuff? Do they take deposits?

I am trying to map this out properly and getting confused by how much of the positioning seems like marketing vs actual product difference my institution is that the real differences are implementation complexity how much internsl FP&A expertise the tool assumes you have and required data cleanliness. Not fundamentally different underlying capability. Is that right or am i missing something?

Whether it explains why, not just what. Showing me that cash is down 15% month over month is easy. Any dashboard does that. Telling me it's because three invoices over 45 days all hit the same week as payroll and that this pattern has shown up in the same quarter for two years running, is actually useful. Most tools stop at the flag. A few actually give you the context. That's the whole difference in practice.

Honestly, it feels like deals today aren't just about "the market is good, let's do something" anymore. There is a lot more thought behind why a deal actually makes sense long term. Companies seem more focused on where they want to be in few years, like building tech capabilities, scaling up, or staying competitive, rather than just chasing a good valuation. At the same time, you can't ignore the market completely. If conditions are rough, even strong deals get delayed, and when things are good, activity naturally picks up. But even then, companies aren't just doing random deals, they still need a solid reason behind them.
So it really feels like the market sets the timing, but strategy is what drives the decision.

I used to think that it was all about being good at finance turns out it is actually not. One needs to understand the basic skills like financial modelling, valuation, and also being comfortable with Excel which is kind of expected but what matters more is being reliable and also getting things done properly with zero mistakes, even the smallest errors can stand out. One also needs to explain things properly without overcomplicating them. The hours can be longer too so patience and stamina is important. I am curious though, do y'all think technical skills matter in the long run, or is it more about how you work and handle pressure.

hi! I wanted to ask some advice on my college finances, since I am kind of at odds with my family.

currently, I want to go to a school in LA that will be about 43,000 per year (tuition, housing, food, after scholarship). I know it'll be a lot, but I feel it'll be easier for me to establish myself, network, and find a career in LA.

however, my parents want me to go to a school Savannah thats about 34,000 per year. they may better be able to support me, but I worry about my career prospects more. additionally, my family has a history of holding financials over my head, and I really dont want to deal with it.

no matter what, im looking at student loans that will be going near $100,000 pre-interest. I've been applying to scholarships, but I have yet to be officially accepted to any.

last note, I've already completed all my gen ed as well as some electives through college in high school classes and APs. Hopefully with this, I can graduate in 3 or 3 ½ years.

id appreciate any advice!

We’ve been working on a retrieval system for teams building AI agents in finance.

(mainly around workflows that need to do in-depth web research).

A few patterns we keep running into:

- cost per query gets high quickly with deep research flows

- latency makes it hard to use in real workflows ( not the quick superficial simple search)

- bloated context windows

Anyone here who is running ai agents in production or uses deep research APIs regularly:

- what is your experience with using those for automations of the financial research tasks?

Would really appreciate any examples of a better approach or any other challenges you see that we are still going to get into.

I'm starting my financial literacy stage, I've had some knowledge but not to the level I want to be at now at this point of my life. I learn by doing and repetition. My goal is by the end of the year to have enough knowledge to comfortably buy an asset to add to my asset column (Sitting at zero now)

I do the normal 401k, low risk investments by fidelity, but I want to do some higher risk stuff like invest myself in the stock market and treat it as a casino and gamble with what I can afford to lose, or even invest in a start up company (someone else wanting to start up a lawn care business but doesn't have the $10k (random $) to invest in the equipment) or idk what else. Vending machines? Very low maintenance stuff

Is there any PC games that simulate day trading or simulate buying and selling assets?

So while in the military I invested in my TSP up to $11k. Since I have been out (almost 7 years), my account has grown to $24k. I am new to investing Roth IRA as of this year, currently doing monthly deposits that will total $7.5 by the end of the year. Should I remove that TSP money amd put it in my Roth or let it keep growing? I will take about a $3k hit if I take the money out.

I’ve had a few missed payments recently and my score took a hit. I’m back on track now and making everything on time. Just wondering how much damage those missed payments do long term? If I stay consistent from here, does it recover pretty well or will it follow me for years?

Not comparison blogs. Not vendor websites. What do real finance teams at like 60 person companies actually use day to day? Im building out the finance function at this size and want to know the real stack. Accounting, fp&a, reporting, dashboards, whatever. What's your actual setup?

padsplit's model of room-by-room rental in single-family homes sits in an interesting middle ground between traditional renting and a full roommate situation. The weekly billing and included utilities pitch sounds good for flexibility but the effective monthly cost compared to a shared apartment in the same market is worth actually running the numbers on before committing. Has anyone lived in a padsplit property for more than a few months? How was the actual experience in terms of house dynamics, property management responsiveness, and whether the all-in price was genuinely better than alternatives in your market?

First stage was everything in google sheets. It worked until we started having to restate historical numbers every time someone found an error which happened a lot because the manual data entry introduced mistakes constantly.

Second stage was pulling directly from quickbooks into formatted reports. Better accuracy, but getting anything non standard out of QB required someone who really knew the report builder and every time we changed our cost structure we had to rebuild the reports from scratch.

Third stage is where we are now, dedicated reporting layer that connects to QB and updates automatically. Reports are always current, variance analysis doesn't require manual work, the month end pack is no longer the thing everyone dreads. The breaking point each time was either data trust or time cost, never that the previous tool was fundamentally bad.

Investment Banking (IB) looks glamorous but the reality is intense. Your work on big deals like mergers and IPOs and can earn ₹10-50 LPA plus huge bonuses sometimes even more than your salary. But the catch ? 70-100 hour workweeks late nights and almost no work-life balance. Breaking in requires a strong college background, internships and serious networking. While the career growth and exit opportunities are great many people burn out and quit within a few years. In simple terms IB isn't luxury it's long hours high pressure and a constant question is the Money really worth it ?

My husband and I was in a difficult situation. One thing led to another and we have a bunch of missed payments, charged off/closed accounts. I dont have any credit cards all of them are charged off and currently negotiated balances down and payment plans to pay them off as well as my husband doing it with somw of his cards as well. How can we build our credit scores back up while saving for a house? We have to move due to my husband getting a new job but we plan to move. We own our home, we also have a mortgage. Do we sell our house and buy another house or rent until our credit scores are higher?

I need to conduct a quick but thorough interview with a professional in the field for an essay. Anyone available to answer on short notice?

Question included:

What are typical day-to-day duties that take place during work?

Are there common obstacles that arise regularly that you have developed a routine for fixing?

Which is a part of your job is the most valuable to your workplace?