Interns explore Wealth Management, Equities and Securities Finance – learning more than imagined

Tag along with Fanny, Wilmer, Wilhelmina and Isabelle in their second blog where they share their experiences from their third and fourth week at the Nordea trading floor in Stockholm.

By Fanny, Wilmer, Wilhelmina and Isabelle

We kicked off our third week at the Securities Advisory desk, which is part of Nordea’s Wealth Management division. During the week, we built both a bond and equity portfolio, observed how a bond issuance works in practice, and deepened our understanding of the difference between the primary and secondary markets.

We then shifted focus briefly from wealth management to the world of derivatives pricing, gaining insights into how various market factors influence valuation. Our case challenge for the week was to construct a portfolio for a pension fund, balancing long-term growth with risk considerations. 

Challenging case, diving into the bond market

It was a very challenging case, especially diving into and understanding the Swedish bond market and picking our holdings. We ended up going for a diversified portfolio with bonds from different sectors and with different maturities, since it was a long term portfolio for a pension fund. Our main learning is that constructing a bond portfolio is hard, especially to do so with a restricted amount of time, and there are endless strategies to adapt.

In week four, we rotated across several teams within Equities. Monday began with Institutional Equity Sales, followed by an afternoon with Equity Research, where we met their interns and enjoyed some well-deserved ice coffee. 

Another highlight of the day, was the opportunity to speak with the Head of Sustainable Finance, who shared valuable insights into how ESG is integrated into financial strategies. We also met the interns from the ESG team.

We got introduced to the Investment Product Trading (IPT) and Structured Products teams, and got our first case of the week; structuring a solution using auto-callable bonds, credit-linked notes, and capital-protected products. This was a shorter case were we got the opportunity to assess the performance of some structured products issued by Nordea in the past, which was a fun task since the products structure are fairly complicated and new to all of us. The following day, offered time to work on the case and present it. 

We also had an introductory session with Securities Finance, before the four of us headed off for a high-intensity group workout. The workout was intense and a lot of fun. 

We spent Thursday and Friday diving deeper into Securities Finance, meeting with various team members to learn about securities lending, securities financing, and equity swaps. The week concluded with our second case; identifying three different clients from distinct client segments who could benefit from security financing solutions.

It's been some great weeks (again). We all find the internship very fun and rewarding. We have learned a lot and it is exciting that there is always more to learn and new aspects we never thought of before. The world of finance is never ending! The internship has given us so much more than we could ever have imagined!

/Wilhelmina, Fanny, Isabelle and Wilmer

If you missed the first blog by the four interns, you can find it here Exploring market dynamics, cracking real-life cases and enjoying every bit – Swedish interns tell why.