Junior Analyst Position

We are looking to hire a junior analyst. For the right candidate this is an opportunity of a lifetime, as this entry-level position has the potential to evolve into a more senior one as the person learns, gets bruised by experience, and IMA continues to grow.

Junior Analyst Position

Opportunities like the following come along very rarely, so if you are a diehard value investor wannabe, read this very carefully.

Junior Analyst Position

We are looking to hire a junior analyst.  For the right candidate this is an opportunity of a lifetime, as this entry-level position has the potential to evolve into a more senior one as the person learns, gets bruised by experience, and IMA continues to grow.  
The candidate will work directly with IMA CEO & CIO Vitaliy Katsenelson,  assisting him in researching stocks for IMA’s clients.  About 25% of the job will consist of doing operational and administrative functions.   

To learn more about IMA, visit imausa.com, contrarianedge.com, and investor.fm.

This is a part-time job (about 30 hours a week) that will evolve over time into full-time. 

Qualities the candidate must have. (If you are missing even one of them, please spare your and our time and don’t apply.)

-Must live, breathe, and dream about value investing.  Just like you can’t teach height in basketball, we can teach many things, but we can’t teach passion. 

-Have a very good understanding of financial statements, how they work, how they interact with each other.  If you have not learned this by now, we are not the right place for you.

-Be a voracious learner, reader, and thinker.  Investing is learned by doing, reading, and thinking.  We’ll help you with the “doing” part and we’ll even teach you.  However, reading and thinking does not stop when you leave the office; it continues.

-Be a self-starter – you need to be able to bulldoze through difficulties on your own initiative.

-Must be a great fit with our core values – see below. 

Knowledge of Excel, Google Sheets, and programming are pluses. 

Education:

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

– Mark Twain

If you have a bachelor’s in business with an emphasis on finance or investing and are studying towards the CFA designation, we are not going to hold that against you.  

However, we are willing to ignore a lack of formal (traditional) education for a self-educated candidate who is dripping with passion and has experience with investing and has been analyzing stocks since he/she was an infant.  

When applying provide the following:

-A sample of a stock idea analysis (doesn’t have to be current; if you have Excel models include them, too.

-Write a few paragraphs about two people (dead or alive) that have impacted you the most and why.

– Write about three books that have impacted you the most and why (a few paragraphs per book is fine; don’t have to be investment books).

-Cover letter – tell us why we’d be making the biggest mistake of our professional lives by not hiring you.

To apply, email Barbara,

IMAʻs Company Values

Integrity: We treat everyone with honesty and respect. 

Excellence and Curiosity: We are never at our destination; we are always on the way there.  We are constantly improving and seeking excellence at everything we do. We are always wondering and learning new things.

Fun: Because life is too short (we have a “no jerks” rule at IMA). All of us want to do this work because we feel fulfilled and energized and love what we do.

IMAʻs Promise to Clients

IMA is anything but just another Wall Street firm, and therefore not everyone who knocks on our door is an appropriate client for us. 

Our clients are our partners, and just like partners in a marriage, we need to share the same values.  Our values are spelled out in Six Commandments of Value Investing.

We promise to be honest and transparent with our partners.  We will invest their money with the same thoughtfulness, care, diligence, and slight hint of paranoia that we employ in investing our own (easy for us to do, as nearly all the liquid net worth of our portfolio managers and their families is invested in the same stocks our clients own). 

We are a firm with a soul, and we’ll never do anything that would put our interests before those of our clients. 

We’re not trying to be the biggest investing firm, just the best one.  In addition to striving to provide great true-risk-adjusted returns, we’ll deliver excellent customer service and a one-of-a-kind client experience.

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