Placement Story: Axxela Advisory Services
Naman’s Campus Placement Experience at Manipal
We spoke to Naman Jain, a Chemical Engineering student from the Batch of 2020. Thriving to be an all-rounder, he made the most of his college life with club activities and fests. His love for numbers ultimately led to him getting an internship in propriety trading with Axxela Advisory Services LLP.
Interviewer: Where are you working right now and can you briefly describe what you are working on?
Naman: I am currently a trainee analyst with Axxela Advisory Services and mainly indulge in propriety trading. During the first week of the internship, we are exposed to economics. There are about 26 interns and 125 full-time traders in the Mumbai office. Interns were divided into groups — one group traded in the US treasuries, another in US Fed. options, another in commodities & the last group in the Australian market. There are four major asset classes, they are equity, fixed income (treasury notes & interest rate futures), forex, and commodities. Trading of all asset classes may happen on the exchange or over the counter (off the exchange). I have been trading in agricultural commodities, mainly the soybean complex. Soybean, soybean meal, soybean oil, and crush margins are the products that form the soybean complex. For example in the case of soybean, when you crush the soybean, you get soybean meal and oil. Crush margin is the price difference between the price of products(meal and oil) and the price of raw materials(soybean). All the work is done on computers, using four different screens, at a time. Throughout the whole internship, all I have done is trade. There are different types of trading — day trading, intra-day trading and algorithm-based trading to name a few. Trading can also be classified based on the frequency, as high-frequency and low-frequency trading. High-frequency trading is generally algorithm-based and the entry and exit are quick, lasting a few minutes to hours. Low-frequency trading on the other hand is manual day trading and the gestation period can be a couple of hours to weeks.
Interviewer: What does a day at work look like?
Naman: A regular working day starts at 1 PM and ends at midnight. Generally, I work for 11 hours, being most active in the US timing as I was trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, an exchange in the US. Between 1 PM and 7 PM, the markets are not very active. In that time, we research international affairs and new policy decisions, as even small changes, in any part of the world can affect the markets. We also look up historical data, to understand how the product reacts in different situations, and at that time of the year. Weather is also an important factor to know about because crops depend on that. In case there is no strong agricultural news, the market looks at broad fundamentals. Also, we look at how major markets and indices are doing like NASDAQ and S&P to mention a few. The reason being that each market or industry is interrelated with every other market. For example, when S&P in the US goes up, all related markets go up, and soon it affects the entire world economy. The US Grain train (a term used for the agriculture commodity markets in the US) is said to be driven by corn. If the prices of corn go up, every other product’s price goes up, and vice versa. Hence, it is very important to be aware of every product and all happenings in the world. 7 PM is when the markets open in the US and I would be glued to my screen till about 12 AM. The office culture is the same as any other trading company. People don’t talk much, you don’t disturb others. We mostly eat at the desk. Decisions have to be taken within seconds, phones are never used during active working hours, as everyone is concentrating on the trade at all times. Punctuality is of utmost importance as, if we are late, our trading is suspended for the day. There are no paid leaves for interns, and leaves for full-time traders vary with their markets.
Interviewer: Tell us about your time in Manipal? What clubs were you part of? What activities did you take part in?
Naman: My time in Manipal was filled with amazing and diverse experiences. Right off the bat, I wanted to try everything and be an all-rounder. I joined the club ‘Engineers Without Borders’ which is a sister organization of ‘Doctors Without Borders’, as I wanted to make an impact and give back to society. It’s an inbuilt helpful trait of mine and I worked on projects ranging from being a technical team member for Sustainable Bio-Toilets, Biogas for cooking to teaching underprivileged children. I also served on the Board as the Logistics & Sponsorship head. One of the most fulfilling projects I was part of involved us giving vocational training to around 30 illiterate people where we took computers from scrap, repaired them, and taught basic Microsoft Office for clerical level jobs. The organization also provided free of cost solar panels and did various other activities and drives. My journey with Engineers Without Borders ended with me becoming the president of the club in my third year. This pursuit of new experiences got me actively involved in Revels and TechTatva, where I volunteered in the first year and worked my way to Organizer for Sponsorship and Operations in TechTatva and Revels respectively.
Interviewer: Were you involved in research work or internships during your time in Manipal?
Naman: During my third year of Chemical engineering, I took part in a research project under a professor but left it after two months, as I felt it was not my cup of tea. It was the same year that I got a summer internship with an MNC called SUEZ, where I worked in the sourcing team. My work mainly revolved around analyzing the spending of the company for a period of 1.5 years, which was upwards of 10 digits. My work also involved negotiation and had me negotiating worth around the middle of six figures. My overall analysis of the company finances ended with me recommending different cost-cutting methods.
One of my internships after the second year involved me working for a company that worked on providing natural gas to different cities. The company was called ‘Mahanagar Gas Limited’ with offices in Mumbai. I worked on a project titled Virtual Pipeline Design and Network Systems. The project was divided into two parts out of which one was designing a pipeline network for the city of Chennai, which had to be spread around an area of about 350 sq. km. The design was put to use for making quotations to auction for tender. The second part of the project involved installing a gas distribution center in places where laying a cross-country pipeline was not possible.
Interviewer: When did you start seriously preparing for placements? How was your experience with placements?
Naman: I focused on my strengths and never had to explicitly prepare for the placements. I was not on the lookout for big-name companies but on smaller organizations where my role would have a larger impact and I could grow both personally and professionally.
Interviewer: When did Axxela come on campus and what profiles did it offer? What were the locations given as options for P/I?
Naman: Axxela came on campus at the beginning of the placement season and it was also the second company for which chemical engineering undergraduates were eligible. Axxela only offered a propriety trading profile and the locations available were Mumbai and Kolkata offices.
Interviewer: Tell us a bit about the Axxela placement process, the rounds, and the pre-requisites. How was your experience?
Naman: For Axxela or any trading company, one has to be good with numbers and fortunately, I am a math person. I couldn’t understand many of the financial terms that the company mentioned in the description during the pre-placement talk. The only terms I was familiar with were equity and forex trading and Axxela doesn’t trade on equity.
The first round was a speed math test where a total of 700 students took part out of which 125 qualified. The next round (Group Discussion) was a trading game. The price of anything in the current round was a sum of all digits on the card where one number was shown at a time. The total number will of course be high at the end. The aim was simple, try and buy at less cost and sell at a high cost. After every round, you must have one lot long or short (long is when you buy first and sell later, short is vice-versa). The last was an interview round which I am quite good at. Good communication skills are a must in a personal interview. In all the rounds, they check your ability to work under pressure in a risky and panicky environment. I was asked why I wanted to change my career, from chemical to finance. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and I had an interest in finance, as I was good with numbers, I wanted to explore this. There is also a greater chance of better career development in finance. After the GD round, 25–27 candidates were shortlisted, and after the interview, 7 candidates were selected.
Interviewer: Any tips you would like to give to the readers?
Naman: Life is long, everyone knows that, but not everyone understands that. Don’t be pressured by the conventional timeline set by people, life isn’t about that (even at 40 we’ll be young as hell). It is about exploring until you find something that you can happily do for life. While doing that, it might be so that you leave numerous jobs or career paths, don’t let it hold you back. Because when you find your true passion, it’ll all be worth it. Persistence always wins. Always.
You can connect with Naman on LinkedIn.
Interviewer & Editor: Manan Shah (Vice President, Corporate Outreach and Finance)
Writers: C Mrinal Ganapathy, Pranjal Kumar, Sai Rohit (Associates)
