Garda Capital Partners (Garda) is a multi-billion dollar alternative investment firm with over 21 years of experience deploying relative value strategies across fixed income markets for institutional investors. Garda's primary offices are located in Wayzata, New York City, West Palm Beach, Geneva, Zug, Copenhagen, Singapore, and Scottsdale.
Garda is looking to hire a highly skilled and motivated Analyst with a strong background in Sterling rates and inflation to work out of our Geneva office. The ideal candidate will possess in-depth knowledge of nominal and real rates instruments (e.g., cash bonds, futures, swaps, swaptions, asset swaps, cross currency basis swaps, linkers, inflation swaps), with strong experience in both trading/risk managing and modeling/analysis. Specifically, the ideal candidate will have extensive prior experience in 1) market making and proprietary trading at a large, international institution in nominal and real Sterling rates instruments; and 2) forecasting UK inflation and analyzing broader macroeconomic data and its impact on UK markets.
Position Responsibilities:
- Work closely with the global head of inflation to manage a portfolio and generate alpha trading strategies primarily in Sterling rates markets.
- Build and maintain sell side, buy side, and institutional relationships in the Sterling rates space and evaluate sell side research for useful, repeatable insights.
- Analyze potential market reactions to macroeconomic and idiosyncratic developments in Sterling rates markets, and provide actionable insights to the broader firm for managing risks and opportunities. This includes generating new trade ideas and risk managing the existing portfolio.
- Support the global head of inflation in forecasting UK inflation and analyzing the impact of broader UK macroeconomic data on markets. This includes handling large datasets; macroeconomic forecasting; and backtesting, identifying, and extracting meaningful insights while accounting for common statistical pitfalls (e.g., overfitting).
Qualifications & Desired Skills:
- Master’s degree in economics or financial mathematics.
- 10 years of trading experience at a top international bulge bracket bank, including market making and proprietary trading of Sterling rates (cash and derivatives, nominal and real). Experience trading broader European rates and/or other asset classes is a strong plus.
- Strong understanding of nominal and real rates instruments, including but not limited to: cash bonds, futures, swaps, swaptions, asset swaps, cross currency basis swaps, linkers, inflation swaps, and other rates derivatives. Solid grasp of pricing, risk, and correlations among and between these instruments and the broader markets.
- Deep understanding of the various market participants and their utility functions (market makers, hedgers, speculators, etc.), liquidity, and order flow in Sterling rates markets.
- Experience implementing competitive strategy in trading, including anticipating others’ actions and strategies, and how it influences market behavior.
- Experience building UK inflation forecasting models and a deep understanding of the nuances of UK inflation subcomponents.