Amplify | Freya Bond, Sales Trader at Deutsche Numis
For our next in our Amplify series, we spoke with sales trader Freya Bond, to find out more about her exciting work, how the trading team work together to provide our industry-leading execution service, as well as how she balances her love of travel and skiing with her fast-paced role.
Can you tell us about your role, and how it helps our clients?
I’m a sales trader and my role is to help our institutional investor clients navigate the equities market and to execute orders in their best interests. We aim to provide liquidity to our clients, ensuring there is enough volume in the market to facilitate the trade, as well as order strategy, which involves understanding a client’s risk tolerance while tapping into several trading venues, such as a stock exchange or a multilateral trading facility.
Crucially, our deep network of relationships across investors and corporates enables us to add insightful and up-to-date market colour. We are able to find natural liquidity and trade solely between clients, ensuring the best possible price for both counterparties with minimal market impact. For example, if a corporate client would like to have a share buy-back, then the trading team would aim to find investors willing to sell to them.
Our role is fast-paced and no two days are ever the same!
Can you explain what the various team members do, and how you all collaborate?
Sales traders like myself focus on relationship management with our institutional investor clients, as we are the interface between client and trader. We work closely with our sales team to understand what portfolio managers are looking at, so we can chase up on the ideas that the sales team gave to them. We then give instructions to the traders as to how and when to execute in order to beat our client’s price benchmarks.
Traders (also known as market makers) focus on execution. They each have their own sector-specific book of stocks and trade on behalf of our institutional investor clients whilst acting in accordance with best execution.
Event-driven specialists, who may be traders or sales traders, focus on stocks in bid and takeover situations, and therefore pricing and liquidity of the stock may vary.
We all collaborate as a team by discussing prices and different methods of trading to ensure the client receives the best and fairest price possible.
It’s great that we have top 3 market share in over two-thirds of our corporate clients – what is it that allows us to dominate do you think?
I think the synergy of our teams across investment banking, sales and research plays a big part in this, as Deutsche Numis is incredibly reputable in the market. This is a large part of why clients come to us, alongside our execution, in which the market makers and sales traders come together to trade to ensure the best outcome for our clients. I also think our rapport with corporates, along with our insightful research, give us the edge and encourages clients to trade with us.
How will the team be working with Deutsche Bank to create opportunities for clients?
Working with Deutsche Bank brings amazing opportunities for our clients. We are able to tap into other markets with our enhanced balance sheet capabilities, as well as access DB’s global research and collaborate with global sales teams.
We are also better versed in macro research now, so can optimise our client service through a global lens. Within the UK specifically, we have been able to increase our stock coverage, giving us a deeper understanding of our landscape and enabling us to communicate with our clients on additional ideas.
How did you end up choosing to work in this area, and at Deutsche Numis in particular?
I have always been interested in financial services, so I joined the Investment Banking Committee while studying international business at university. My first experience within the markets was during an internship at Redburn on the sales-trading desk. After graduating, I broked equity derivatives, which gave me insight into the importance of understanding complex products and how relationships are key.
Numis was considered the best independent investment bank in the UK, so I knew it would be a great place to further my career while learning from an experienced team. I also loved that the smaller size of the team would allow more exposure to great opportunities.
What are your interests outside of work?
I love to ski and I try to go as often as possible during the season. I like to scuba dive when travelling, as I was fortunate to get my PADI when I was in Venezuela. I also enjoy working out, offsetting the eating out, and for keeping a positive mindset. Generally anything that involves exploring the wonderful food scene of London!
Do you have any mentors or role models?
I look up to Grace Claxton, a trader within our team. It’s nice to have another woman on the desk that I can relate to and who is well-liked within the market and on the desk, so I’m keen to learn from her and follow in her footsteps. Niamh O’Connor on our equity sales desk has also been very welcoming and helpful - I feel like I can ask for her advice anytime.
How could we support more women within trading and financial services?
My university dissertation was actually based around this topic - I think having a female mentor would definitely help. For me, having someone to relate to when experiencing the ups and downs (mainly ups) of being in the industry is helpful.
I think showcasing diversity within organisations as part of the recruitment process would be beneficial as it addresses unconscious bias. As more women are entering into finance in all levels, it would be great to show the industry is less-male dominated than it once was. Having a women’s network at DB is great as there are so many different opportunities to get involved and meet others across the organisation.
Home
For our next in our Amplify series, we spoke with sales trader Freya Bond, to find out more about her exciting work, how the trading team work together to provide our industry-leading execution service, as well as how she balances her love of travel and skiing with her fast-paced role.
Can you tell us about your role, and how it helps our clients?
I’m a sales trader and my role is to help our institutional investor clients navigate the equities market and to execute orders in their best interests. We aim to provide liquidity to our clients, ensuring there is enough volume in the market to facilitate the trade, as well as order strategy, which involves understanding a client’s risk tolerance while tapping into several trading venues, such as a stock exchange or a multilateral trading facility.
Crucially, our deep network of relationships across investors and corporates enables us to add insightful and up-to-date market colour. We are able to find natural liquidity and trade solely between clients, ensuring the best possible price for both counterparties with minimal market impact. For example, if a corporate client would like to have a share buy-back, then the trading team would aim to find investors willing to sell to them.
Our role is fast-paced and no two days are ever the same!
Can you explain what the various team members do, and how you all collaborate?
Sales traders like myself focus on relationship management with our institutional investor clients, as we are the interface between client and trader. We work closely with our sales team to understand what portfolio managers are looking at, so we can chase up on the ideas that the sales team gave to them. We then give instructions to the traders as to how and when to execute in order to beat our client’s price benchmarks.
Traders (also known as market makers) focus on execution. They each have their own sector-specific book of stocks and trade on behalf of our institutional investor clients whilst acting in accordance with best execution.
Event-driven specialists, who may be traders or sales traders, focus on stocks in bid and takeover situations, and therefore pricing and liquidity of the stock may vary.
We all collaborate as a team by discussing prices and different methods of trading to ensure the client receives the best and fairest price possible.
It’s great that we have top 3 market share in over two-thirds of our corporate clients – what is it that allows us to dominate do you think?
I think the synergy of our teams across investment banking, sales and research plays a big part in this, as Deutsche Numis is incredibly reputable in the market. This is a large part of why clients come to us, alongside our execution, in which the market makers and sales traders come together to trade to ensure the best outcome for our clients. I also think our rapport with corporates, along with our insightful research, give us the edge and encourages clients to trade with us.
How will the team be working with Deutsche Bank to create opportunities for clients?
Working with Deutsche Bank brings amazing opportunities for our clients. We are able to tap into other markets with our enhanced balance sheet capabilities, as well as access DB’s global research and collaborate with global sales teams.
We are also better versed in macro research now, so can optimise our client service through a global lens. Within the UK specifically, we have been able to increase our stock coverage, giving us a deeper understanding of our landscape and enabling us to communicate with our clients on additional ideas.
How did you end up choosing to work in this area, and at Deutsche Numis in particular?
I have always been interested in financial services, so I joined the Investment Banking Committee while studying international business at university. My first experience within the markets was during an internship at Redburn on the sales-trading desk. After graduating, I broked equity derivatives, which gave me insight into the importance of understanding complex products and how relationships are key.
Numis was considered the best independent investment bank in the UK, so I knew it would be a great place to further my career while learning from an experienced team. I also loved that the smaller size of the team would allow more exposure to great opportunities.
What are your interests outside of work?
I love to ski and I try to go as often as possible during the season. I like to scuba dive when travelling, as I was fortunate to get my PADI when I was in Venezuela. I also enjoy working out, offsetting the eating out, and for keeping a positive mindset. Generally anything that involves exploring the wonderful food scene of London!
Do you have any mentors or role models?
I look up to Grace Claxton, a trader within our team. It’s nice to have another woman on the desk that I can relate to and who is well-liked within the market and on the desk, so I’m keen to learn from her and follow in her footsteps. Niamh O’Connor on our equity sales desk has also been very welcoming and helpful - I feel like I can ask for her advice anytime.
How could we support more women within trading and financial services?
My university dissertation was actually based around this topic - I think having a female mentor would definitely help. For me, having someone to relate to when experiencing the ups and downs (mainly ups) of being in the industry is helpful.
I think showcasing diversity within organisations as part of the recruitment process would be beneficial as it addresses unconscious bias. As more women are entering into finance in all levels, it would be great to show the industry is less-male dominated than it once was. Having a women’s network at DB is great as there are so many different opportunities to get involved and meet others across the organisation.