Learning a lot with front row seats to the capital markets – meet our interns at the trading floor in Copenhagen

Meet Đurđija, Carl and Emma who join us with various educations in engineering, computer science, economics and finance. Already, after two weeks of their internship, they’ve learned a lot – about the capital markets, quantitative research, coding, market risk, capital consumption, dashboard development, and much more. And then there’s the social aspect such as hanging out with fellow interns and team mates, and getting acquainted with numerous Markets people. 

Read the blog by the three interns and see what they’ve been up to the past weeks; hear about their projects, challenges and learnings. 

By Đurđija, Carl and Emma

Đurđija Milinković (21) – intern in Quantitative Research

I don’t really come with a financial background. I developed technical skills by completing a BSc in General Engineering focused on Computer Science study line at the Technical University of Denmark, followed by an outgoing MSc in Mathematical Modeling and Computation. Curious about applying math models in finance, I got accepted into the Nordea Women’s Finance Insight Programme (WFIP) – and was excited to be the only girl with a technical background in a program designed to introduce finance and banking. 

Motivation and aspirations

Through the WFIP, I met many employees and heard great stories about Nordea as a workplace, which made me eager to experience it myself, and gain practical experience. I’m motivated to connect with skilled professionals from various educational backgrounds and learn from them. I’m excited to see how my technical and analytical skills can be applied to finance and be beneficiary to the business and customers. This internship is an excellent opportunity to learn what happens behind the scenes on the largest trading floor in the Nordics, especially in quantitative research.

Learned a lot already

As an intern in the Quantitative Research team, I’m working on a project for the Non-Linear team. The idea is to apply machine learning models to predict the monthly changes in inflation, including the impact on prices of main commodities such as oil, wheat or milk.  

In just two weeks at Nordea, I’ve learned a lot due to the daily activities and numerous learning opportunities for us interns. Among other things, I’ve researched financial terms, started my project, attended a team introduction breakfast, and had many nice lunches with my team and other interns. As this is my first full-time position, it took some time to adjust to the differences between university and working life.

Carl Buan (24) – intern in Trading Capital

I am currently in the final year of my Msc. in Economics at the University of Copenhagen writing my thesis next spring. Recently I have just returned home from an exchange semester in Australia at the University of Melbourne before beginning my internship at Nordea. 

Motivation and aspirations

I applied to the summer internship due to an interest in financial markets, and a desire to experience how the markets work in practice. During my studies I have focused on econometrics, finance and programming subjects, hence the summer internship at Nordea Markets provided a perfect opportunity to get first-hand experience with trading floors and financial markets.

Diving into market risk and coding and meeting many Markets people

As intern in Trading Capital, I’ve spent most of my time learning about market risk, going through code in Excel, SQL and Python, and getting an understanding of how it works and how different financial risk measures are calculated. Throughout the summer, I’m going to help analysing and showing the capital consumption in the market.

While working in Trading Capital, I have met many different people working with capital usage in Markets, and have regularly talks (and coffee) with the xVA (x-valuation-adjustment) team. 

I regularly meet up with the other summer interns for lunch and have breakfasts with different teams on the trading floor.

Great learnings and extremely helpful and welcoming people

During the internship, so far, I’ve learned a lot about financial markets, the different teams in Nordea Markets and about market risk. I’m learning to get an understanding of how risk is calculated and how it’s handled on a daily basis, which is extremely interesting. I have done some coding in Python for generating dashboards of equity risk and equity P&L. Also, us interns have been having weekly introductions to the different teams. So, I’ve learned a lot, already, in the first two weeks.

The people working here are extremely helpful and welcoming, and eager to answer any question an inexperienced intern may have. Additionally, contrary to my expectations, the trading floor is relatively quiet (due to the summer vacation season), so it is not a challenge to focus on the task at hand.

Emma Slimani (23) – intern in Rates Business Technology

I am pursuing a double degree in Engineering and Finance in France. I am from France, and it is my first time in Copenhagen. 

Motivation and aspirations

I applied to this internship to get a professional, hands-on experience, and to use my knowledge learnt at school in the real world. I look forward to gaining technical skills in coding, but also to meet new skilled people who can share their work experience. I also hope the internship can give me a sense of what the financial/banking environment is like, and help me in my choice for my future job.

Dashboard for traders and sales people

As intern in the Rates Business Technology team, I am working on the development of a dashboard which aims to gather all the applications that the traders and sales use. 

I have met all the people from the Rates Business Technology Team in Denmark, as well as the traders who have explained their work to me. Together with the other summer interns, we have also met the compliance team who took us through some of all the many risks that a bank is exposed to, and mapped out the rules for us to follow to ensure the security.

Challenging but great learning

During this first week, I have been installing my work environment such as the software I’ll be using for the development of the dashboard. I have started to train with the software that the team is using to develop their dashboard. 

I find the internship to be challenging because there (obviously) is a gap between what we learn at school and the task we do here, in real life. But I am learning a lot, and that is the main goal of the internship. Also, various social activities have been organised for us, such as joint breakfasts with the other interns, which is a really great way to get to know each other. 

Stay tuned for the next blog from our trading floor in Copenhagen where you get to meet the four fellow interns, Ella, Jennifer, Emad and Vidisha.

Meanwhile, check out some of the other blogs featuring summer interns in Markets, LC&I in Norway , Sweden and Finland .