"Our first two weeks have been very rewarding” – meet Karl Emil, Andreas & Christoffer

Read the first blog from Karl Emil, Andreas and Christoffer, and hear about their backgrounds, expectations and learnings, so far, as interns at the Nordea Markets trading floor in Copenhagen.

Karl Emil Thulstrup (23)

Since the beginning of my studies, I have been working at Falcon Invest, a Danish company within systematic factor investing. I started as Junior Portfolio Manager and was later promoted to Portfolio Manager.

As my experience in the industry has been with a relatively small company with focus on stock markets, I instantly got interested when I noticed the Markets Summer Internship opportunity on LinkedIn. I asked my employer, Falcon, for a leave of absence to join Markets’ Summer Internship – and as soon as they agreed, I applied immediately.

I see this internship as an unique opportunity to get insight into a large corporation and experience the daily life on the largest trading floor of the Nordics. At the same time, it is also a great possibility for me to familiarise with other parts of the financial markets which I have not had much practical experience with; particularly FX markets. And I have already learned a lot.

The first two weeks have definitely exceeded my expectations. First and foremost, I have seen how the financial theory of FX markets is used in practice, which is a very valuable experience both in terms of considerations in regards to future career options, but also to know how the sell-side of financial markets work. Secondly, I have been introduced to the systems of Nordea and challenged with tasks similar to the ones the employees handle. Lastly, I have been presented to a multitude of different positions and career opportunities within Nordea at the very workstations/desks, and by the people who work there.

Therefore, even the first two weeks have been very rewarding and an enormously positive experience.

Andreas Mosgaard Jørgensen (24)

I have taken a wide range of courses including quantitative finance, statistics, machine learning, programming and thus I decided to apply for an internship in Nordea Markets, where I hopefully can bring these tools to great use.

My final project of my bachelor’s degree was about modelling the stock market both analytically and by using machine learning. During the project my interest in finance increased and I realized that the modelling and problem solving in physics can be equally interesting to do in finance.

One might think that physics is far from finance, but here in Markets e-Trading in the Systematic Market Making & Automation unit, I am surrounded by many physicists as well as mathematicians and engineers. They have been in the same situation as I’m in, and therefore understand that I do not yet know all the industry specific terminology, but can quickly acquire the knowledge needed.

When applying for the internship, my expectations were to learn a lot, and get a feeling of whether I would fit into the financial sector. So far, this has most certainly been the case, both in terms of industry knowledge, programming and whether banking is a good fit for me. It is!

I have already developed a model which works well. I am looking forward to implementing machine learning models that have the potential to reveal new insights or support the traders in their decision making. I would find both outcomes satisfying, and I really feel that I have the opportunity to contribute, even though I’m only going to be here for eight weeks.

The entire team have been welcoming and taken their time to explain what they do, as well as including me in social activities such as going out or playing. The team is nice and I quickly felt like a part of it. Even though the majority of my time so far have been spend on working on the same project, I have been lucky enough to get an introduction to multiple of the different teams in Nordea Markets, which gave me valuable insights into how the bank operates on a larger scale. 

Spending my entire summer break from university at Nordea Markets does not make me feel like I am missing out on a lot of fun, as I experience a lot of interesting stuff on a daily basis here, including meeting a lot of inspiring and likeminded people.

Christoffer Brevadt (23) 

I heard about this internship through an intern mailing list at my studies. When I read this email I knew that this was a unique opportunity to see how one of the greatest trading floors in the Nordic works, and I instantly applied.

I expect the internship to give me a deeper and more solid understanding of the financial sector. Furthermore, I am hoping to gain real life perspective on the industry from my colleagues and form invaluable connections with Nordea.

I look forward to learning about Markets through hands on experience and different knowledge sharing sessions and presentation by people from different Markets teams. Especially, I look forward to learn about the FX market which I think is a market that people outside the banking world often overlooks.

The first couple of weeks here have been better than I could imagine. I have used the first weeks by digging into the theory of FX trades before I started implementing a piece of code which finds the euro-rates of the base and term regardless of how the legs in the trade are formed.  These codes will be used to analysing the PL for the trades.

The entire team has been welcoming and very helpful whenever I run into problems. I have really been surprised how good the team spirit is in a big company as Nordea. There is a lot of social gatherings and this definitely makes it a more fun place to work.

And we guarantee, that the learnings and good fun continues for the rest of their internship with us in Markets. So, stay tuned for their next blog.

Meanwhile, have a look at the blog from their three fellow Danish interns, or check out our Career blog for more stories about work life and career opportunities at Nordea Markets, Large Corporates & Institutions.