Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. The Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments and individuals from more than 1,200 offices in 43 countries.
As a market leader, the talent and passion of our people is critical to our success. Together, we share a common set of values rooted in integrity, excellence, and strong team ethic. Morgan Stanley can provide a superior foundation for building a professional career—a place to learn, to achieve and grow. A philosophy that balances personal lifestyles, perspectives, and needs is an important part of our culture.
Department Overview
Wealth Management’s Global Investment Office produces macro-to-micro research and analysis to help Advisors build their practices and manage their clients’ portfolios.
- Provide direction on investment strategy and portfolio construction
- Publish market-related commentary, including fundamental and technical drivers, investment themes, actionable ideas, and “white papers”
- Design and monitor asset allocation models and single-security model portfolios
- Perform investment manager due-diligence on traditional and alternative funds
- Provide research coverage on municipal fixed income, ETFs, and CEFs
- Partner with Advisors to understand investments and help them manage relationships with clients and close business with prospects
- Manage Field initiatives including road shows, conference calls, and summits
Job Description
The Portfolio Construction and Cross-Asset Strategy (PC|XS) team within Morgan Stanley’s Global Investment Office (GIO) contributes actively to the success of Morgan Stanley’s Advisors and clients.
In support of the Global Investment Committee, the team develops and applies a disciplined, systematic approach to portfolio construction. Using evidence-driven frameworks and other quantitative methods to analyze opportunities and recommend tactical exposures, the team supports the Global Investment Committee (GIC) and Financial Advisors across the investment process: strategic, tactical and dynamic asset allocation; active-passive decisions; manager selection; and portfolio construction and risk management. The team has responsibility for introducing, updating, and strengthening multiple proprietary frameworks, whose conclusions guide the Global Investment Committee, our manager due-diligence teams, and Firm-discretionary investment processes. Moreover, using these frameworks, the team oversees a suite of ETF allocation portfolios and several blended ETF-mutual fund portfolios. The team assists Advisors with their discretionary portfolio construction, seeking to recommend high-quality portfolio lineups and deliver scalable customization. Recently, the team has launched a framework and tool to address taxable clients’ concentrated equity positions.
The team also authors or supports multiple cross-asset strategy publications, including the “GIC Weekly,” “Topics in Portfolio Construction,” “Global Insights, “Fixed Income Insights,” “Daily Positioning,” and the ChartBook. These publications seek to analyze and simplify investment ideas and market movements and portfolio strategy guidance for Financial Advisors and clients. Advisors frequently turn to the team for strategy guidance and for support with client questions or client meetings.
The team’s lead seeks a partner with sound judgment, a passion for collaboration and excellence, and a spirit of innovation and ownership, with the goal of deepening and strengthening our investment strategy and delivery. This role will provide broad opportunities to contribute to Morgan Stanley’s investment strategy guidance, principally through serving as a lead author on the soon-to-be-launched “Alternatives Insights” and secondarily contributing to the team’s portfolio construction consulting and quantitative frameworks. The candidate will have responsibility for articulating the Firm’s global macro and portfolio positioning views, focusing on the implications for alternative investments. The candidate will contribute heavily to the team’s research initiatives, including developing new frameworks and strengthening and maintaining existing ones. Portfolio management experience, particularly in multi-asset or alternative investment strategies, and experience with derivatives, commodities, and currencies would be highly welcome.
Position Requirements
- Demonstrated experience in multi-asset and alternative investments strategy, including specific knowledge of sub-strategies within hedged strategies and private investments
- Strong attention to detail and analytical skills
- Effective written and verbal communication skills
- Entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for a culture of ownership
- Desire to thrive in a collaborative environment, leveraging strong interpersonal skills
- Solid organizational skills and ability to work across multiple functions
- Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills with strong business judgment
- Intellectually curious
- Experience in publishing investment research and strategy guidance for broad audiences
- Experience with market data research and risk management systems (e.g., Aladdin, Barra, Bloomberg, FactSet, and Morningstar)
- Intermediate technical skills, including advanced Excel modeling and PowerPoint skills and potentially quantitative programming languages (Matlab, SAS, SQL, Dataiku, or Python)
Experience
- Bachelor’s degree, preferably including quantitative coursework
- Eight-plus years of experience as an investment strategist or portfolio manager
- Grounding in alternative investment strategies from hedge funds to venture capital, private equity, private credit, private real estate and infrastructure.
- Buy-side or sell-side experience a plus
- Series 7 and 66 preferred, with expectation to obtain within three months of start date
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:
We are committed to maintaining the first-class service and high standard of excellence that have defined Morgan Stanley for over 89 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.
To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-officesinto your browser.
Expected base pay rates for the role will be between 160,000 and 270,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs
Morgan Stanley's goal is to build and maintain a workforce that is diverse in experience and background but uniform in reflecting our standards of integrity and excellence. Consequently, our recruiting efforts reflect our desire to attract and retain the best and brightest from all talent pools. We want to be the first choice for prospective employees.
It is the policy of the Firm to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, sex stereotype, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, disability, marital and civil partnership/union status, pregnancy, veteran or military service status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversifying its workforce (M/F/Disability/Vet).
