Blaine E. Grimes Summer Grant Recipient

Divesh Naresh Raney

I worked at Citi Smith Barney in New York with a senior Financial Advisor. Through this internship and with the help of my Financial Advisor’s experience, I gained immense knowledge about the securities markets and its dynamics.

The internship was a great learning experience, one that may bring me new opportunities in the near future, especially when it’s time to look for jobs. Working in New York, the financial hub of the world, helped me interact with financial executives who have spent most of their lives dealing with equity and debt transactions. Holding millions of dollars of clients’ hard earned wealth is not easy, I learnt, especially when the markets went from a strong buy to a massive sell-off during July and August.

Primarily, I focused on the equity markets researching stocks, mutual funds, and most importantly, exchange traded funds (ETFs), a product in high demand for its low-cost fees and superior performance. My research was primarily on international and Real Estate Short ETFs. They were particularly in our focus because of their profit potential in a slumping domestic market caused by the real estate and sub-prime mortgage crisis. Clients always want to make money; it’s the sole reason they invest, and these ETFs were the best investments available. I also prepared monthly ETF reports for June and July.

I was given access to financial programs and software such as Reuters Plus, Dorsey Wright and Standard & Poor reports that helped me learn in depth, valuations and ratios of equity products and develop plans involving asset allocation and risk analysis of securities.

Overall, it was a great learning experience and the scholarship helped take care of important costs especially when living in an expensive city such as New York. I would like to thank you for helping me make this internship a success. Thank you.