Fixed Income Division - Analyst or Associate, Municipal Markets (New York)

Quantitative Strategist

Join a quantitative team supporting a large municipal bond market-making desk. Our team works alongside traders across electronic and voice trading, bond origination, specialized lending, and bespoke derivative products. We leverage mathematics, statistics, machine learning, and software to solve practical trading problems, including analyzing trading strategies, building electronic trading algorithms, modeling the financial risks associated with the desk’s inventory, and conducting detailed analysis of trading profits and losses.

Municipal markets pose unique quantitative challenges due to infrequent trading, diverse structural features across securities, and potentially incomplete market data. We develop mathematical models that connect observable market variables to bond prices, enabling the trading desk to estimate value, identify relative-value opportunities, manage risk, and improve trading decisions.

The Role

As a Quantitative Strategist, you will work directly with traders, quantitative researchers, and engineers. You will use data and statistical analysis to identify potential trading strategies, assist with complex trades and hedging decisions, and improve the models and systems used to price securities and monitor risk. This role involves both immediate desk-facing analysis and longer-term research into trading strategies and market behavior. You will also help organize and maintain the team’s quantitative research environment, including its modeling software, research archive, Python packages, Linux environment, containers, and testing.

Responsibilities

• Research and test quantitative trading strategies.
• Assist traders in evaluating complex transactions, hedge selection, position sizing, and execution timing.
• Develop pricing and risk models for municipal bonds, bond derivatives, and related products.
• Analyze inventory risk, trading activity, and profit-and-loss performance.
• Apply statistics and machine learning to trading, pricing, and risk-management problems.
• Help transition machine-learning and AI models into production environments.
• Organize and maintain quantitative models, research code, and development environments.
• Communicate analytical findings clearly to traders and other stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
• Master's degree in a STEM field, preferably Applied Math, MFE, Operations Research, Statistics, Physics, or Engineering.
• Strong knowledge of probability, statistics, numerical methods, and mathematical modeling.
• Good programming skills, preferably in Python.
• Familiarity with, or an interest in learning, Linux, Git, package management, containers, pandas, and NumPy.
• Strong interest in trading and financial markets.
• The ability to take ownership of software, models, and research processes.
• Excellent analytical, organizational, and communication skills.
• A collaborative personality and interest in working closely with trading desk professionals.
• Ability to stay calm under pressure and possess a positive, "can-do," extroverted personality.
• Experience with fixed income, derivatives, bond mathematics, JavaScript, kdb+/q, machine learning, or production model deployment is helpful but not required.
• Recent graduates and candidates with up to three years of relevant experience are encouraged to apply. Prior municipal bond experience is not required.

What You Can Expect From Morgan Stanley

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage, and allocate capital for our clients, helping them reach their goals through a differentiated approach established over 90 years. Our values—putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back—guide our daily decisions for the benefit of our clients, communities, and over 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. You will 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 diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families throughout their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive benefits in the industry. There is also ample opportunity to move across the business for those who demonstrate passion and drive.

For more information about our global offices, please visit https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices.

Expected base pay rates for this role are between $110,000 and $125,000 per year for an Analyst or $150,000 to $200,000 per year for an Associate upon commencement. Please note that base pay will be determined on an individualized basis and constitutes only part of the total compensation package, which may include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley-sponsored benefit programs.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents. Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities we operate in, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.