Posted 7:30 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Tribute: The Best Restaurant in Michigan
With my last final behind me and wedding anniversary at hand, last night the wife and I celebrated with dinner at Tribute, a world-class French restaurant in Farmington Hills (30 miles NE of Ann Arbor). The meal truly lived up to the blurbs on Tribute's website ("Tribute may be the best restaurant between New York and Chicago; it is certainly the finest in Detroit,"--the New York Times, dripping with flyover disdain). And although the most expensive restaurant we've visited in Michigan, it didn't come close to doing the kind of credit card devastation that a Manhattan restaurant can. Sans tip, a full meal with wine can be had for less than $150.

We both went with their 7 course "Degustation" menu, which last night included:
Trio of Ceviche - Blue Fin Tuna with Yuzu; Fluke with Konbu and Ponzu; Yellowtail with Citrus and Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Seared Maine Scallops and Gulf Shrimp - Black Trumper Mushroom, Potato Gnocchi, Jerusalem Artichoke, Verjus Brown Butter, Mushroom Foam
Potato Crusted Monkfish - Braised Swiss Chard, Hedgehog Mushrooms, Jerusalem Artichoke, Pinot Noir Reduction
Pear Salad - Roquefort Cheese, Roasted Butternut Squash, Spiced Walnuts, Haricot Vert, Pear Chips, Cider-Walnut Dressing
Roasted Four Story Hill Farm Avian Hen - Lentil Salad, Glazed Pearl Onion, Winter Black Truffle, Roasted Shallot Jus
Bergamot Scented Panna Cotta - Earl Grey Gelee, Buddha's Hand Confit, Cardamom Foam
Milk Chocolate-Caramel Chiffon - Praline Ice Cream, Balsamic Reduction, Fleur de Sel

Each dish was a tiny little thing, but after seven I was plenty full. I'd highly recommend this restaurant to anyone celebrating a special (romantic) occassion.

Posted 7:27 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
SAS Sale Today
SAS has been running this "advent calendar" sale during December, with each day bringing a different destination city for $249 round trip. Today only they've re-opened all 23 previous day's worth of sales, so if you're interested in visiting Amsterdam, Milan, Bergen, or even Gdansk, for $249, check it out.

Posted 3:56 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
3 Down, 1 To Go
Just got out of my third final exam, in FIN 622 (Corporate Financial Engineering). Like most electives' finals, it ran for two hours. It was probably the fairest one yet; tough but fair, that is. Questions about hedging commodity risks, credit derivatives, and the like. Doing a 3-period transition mix sans-laptop wasn't pretty, though.

Most of the MBA1s are off partying at Rick's, since the core classes' exams wrapped up today at 1pm. Alas, I still have one more final to go, on Thursday.

I got my final grade back from MATH 542 (the Financial Engineering I course offered through the Math department): B-. Considering it assumed math skills that I didn't possess, I'll take it. I hope that I'll never again take a course that involves greek letters like "ksee". Really, alpha, beta, delta, and gamma should be more than enough.

In other good news, we're experiencing a heat wave today in Ann Arbor: it broke above freezing (we've been in the 0s for the past few days).

Posted 5:14 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Time for VoIP?
A classmate has recommended switching to Vonage's VoIP (Voice over IP) phone service. I was skeptical at first, but he's been using it for several months and swears the sound quality is just as good as a regular phone line, and much better than cellular.

Assuming the sound quality is as good, the benefits would be numberous: 1. Keeping the same phone number no matter where I move. 2. Being able to check for messages over the internet; you can even have new messages automatically emailed to you as sound files. 3. Don't need any special equipment, other than a free adapter box. 4. Price. Using Vonage's Basic Plan and international rates, my latest phone bill, about $109, would be slashed to about $30, a 72% cut!

Sometime next term I'll write a big "technology review" post, and will definitely include this if I go forward with it.

Posted 7:28 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Holiday Reading for IB Job Hunters
I sent the following suggested reading list to the MBA1s looking to go into sales and trading. With but a little over four weeks left until on-campus interviews, I'm sure they'll be completely focused on finance and the markets anyway.

NY Post: Bonus Bonanza (link)
(Something light and happy to get them warmed up...)

IDD: Shake-up in '04 Equity, Junk Rankings (link)

PIMCO (Bill Gross): Investment Outlook, December 2004: Too Much!
(link)

Morgan Stanley: Global Economic Forum (link)

New York Fed: Will the U.S. Productivity Resurgence Continue? (link)

New York Fed: Are Home Prices the Next "Bubble"? (link)

New York Fed: Why Did the Average Duration of Unemployment Become So Much Longer? (link)

Kansas City Fed: Impact of Impending Baby Boom Retirements on the Stock Markets link)

These are complemented by the technical readings list I put together last year at about this time.

Posted 1:57 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Good News on the Job Front
The OCD (Office of Career Development) e-mailed all students the following encouraging news today:

"...According to our most recent data, 38% (or 170) of our MBA's have received at least one offer. Last year, only 24% (or 104) MBA's received at least one offer...

Last year, only 11% (or 49) MBA's concluded their job searches. This year, the total number of MBA's that concluded their job searches increased by 8%..."

Anecdotally, this looks to be a gonzo year for internship recruiting as well. Since I'm a Finance Club officer I keep my eye on the online job database, and every week seems to bring another investment bank coming for [IB] interviews.

Posted 6:28 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Crunch Day
No, I'm not stressed, but here it is, the peak of this term's academic cycle. 08:50 - the final Corporate Financial Engineering class.
11:00 - fifteen minute presentation, in Japanese, on the residential construction industry (random facts: capital gains tax rate on home sales there, 40%; productivity rate of industry compared to america's: 45%; average lifespan of homes: 26 years, to America's 44 years; discuss amongst yourselves...)
14:10 - one minute motivational speech in Management Communications (my topic: responding to setbacks defines you; or how to lose a state house race, lose a state house leadership race, lose two US Senate races, and still end up as President of the United States.)
18:00 - final exam in MATH 542 (also known as "ouch".)
21:40 - audition for a role in the annual Michigan Follies.

The tricky thing about my Tuesdays is that I have enough time between classes to not have to race between them, but not long enough to have lunch with a classmate. This is compounded by the fact that Business Japanese and MATH 542 are not at the business school, but rather a fifteen minute walk and ten minute drive away, respectively.

Posted 6:46 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Housing Price Bubble?
...is an interest of mine, ever since my New Jersey home price rose 30% from '01 to '03, and since prices have continued to skyrocket from there. The New York Fed just published a paper on the subject: Are Home Prices the Next "Bubble"? You can also sign-up for e-mail alerts on new Fed research. Reason #847 that the internet is great.

Posted 6:56 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Choosing a Career; or Why Trading?
In response to a reader e-mail, I'd like to elaborate some on choosing a career.

Many new MBA students run into trouble the first term from being pulled in many different career directions. That's understandable, because there are cool aspects of most careers, from the deal-making of investment banking to the complex strategic issues of management consulting. Yet there are striking differences in these jobs that should, in the end, make it easy to decide amongst them (due to the time requirements of recruiting for a single career path, it's virtually impossible to successfully pursue two different paths at the same time).

I would recommend a simple exercise of writing down, in order of importance, the criteria--but not the subject matter--for their dream job. For myself, the list would look something like:

1. Fast-Paced: unstructured, exciting days
2. Meritocratic: pay depends on my performance
3. Decision-making: I have the power to make important decisions
4. Fun atmosphere (I like to joke around, so could not work in an overly-PC environment)
5. Requires me to follow world, macroeconomic events (as opposed to single-company issues)
6. High compensation
7. Limited travel
8. Intense, but reasonable hours (i.e. <70 a week)
9. Starts early is fine
10. Big-city

With that list in hand, the right career becomes very clear. While I can appreciate the intellectual challenge of consulting, for example, it fails criteria #3 (in the end, the client makes the decision) and #7. Investment banking, with its deal-centric pace, fails #1 and #8. Brand management fails #1, clearly #5, #6 (at least over the medium term), and #10 (most of the great brand companies are outside of New York/LA/San Francisco).

Trading, at least in most product areas, nails every one of those criteria. #1, #2, and #3 define a trader's day. Working on a trading floor is great--none of the stifling sensitivities that pop-up in most corporate life. Point #5 relates more to which trading desk I'm drawn to--interest rate trading over stock trading, for example.

If more incoming students went through this exercise, asking themselves, "What type of work would I enjoy year after year?", asking themselves, "Do I like unstructured days or long-term projects?", "Do I enjoy weekly business travel?", "Do I want to work--and be compensated--in a team?", "Does the idea of deeply focusing on one company's strategic position turn me on or turn me off?", "Do I want to live in New York?", they'd be able to settle on a career path much more quickly.

After all, finance jobs can be found in any company across America and the world; Wall Street is just one [small] branch of it. Management jobs dealing with strategy can be found in most companies across America; management consulting is not the only job in which you'll deal with those issues.

Posted 6:54 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Jealousy
The Fall term at Chicago starts several weeks after Michigan, yet they've just wrapped up final exams whereas we haven't even started them? Huh?

Posted 1:28 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Coursework and Stress
It either reflects differences in the schools or in the personalities of the authors, but I've noticed that other MBA bloggers are stressing about schoolwork as the term comes to a close (see uno dos tres).

I hope that readers don't get the wrong impression--generally, coursework is not that hard. Why? First, 99% of the time you'll be working in groups. Second, for most students, grades don't mean a thing (very few recruiting industries ask about them). Third, schools want students to get jobs, so they don't place huge homework burdens on them. At least, all these points are true for the Ross School of Business.

So I've gone through my MBA with the attitude that any stress I feel about classwork is self-inflicted; i.e. if I'm stressing, it's because, effectively, I've chosen to stress.

What is the workload like? My heaviest business school course this term, FIN 622 Corporate Financial Engineering, meets Tuesdays and Thursdays (at 8:50am !) Every week we have a homework due on Tuesday and a case writeup on Thursday. Working in teams, that's a few hours of work per week, max. I compare that to some of the computer science problem sets I got at MIT where I'd spend six hours just figuring out what the questions meant, or that Thanksgiving break I spent in the basement computer animation lab rendering and rendering and rendering, and business school is a breeze.

Incidentally, FIN 622 is my favorite finance course so far, because it's so real-world. Basically, it's a seven week sprint through the practical uses of foreign exchange, interest rate, and credit risk hedging.

If any classes are giving me trouble this year, it's the non-business school ones. Business Japanese I is a great class but there's tons of homework (to do alone). MATH 542 Financial Engineering involves math that is way beyond my level, so I'm struggling to keep up. Yet still, I'm not stressed about the grades because they just don't matter; what matters is how much of the material I truly learn.

What does a typical end-of-term schedule look like at Michigan? For me, I've got a 15 minute Japanese presentation (Nihon no juutaku kensetu gyoukai--"Japan's Residential Construction Industry") and a Financial Engineering Final next Tuesday; the Japanese final exam on Friday the 17th; and then the two finance final exams on the 22nd and 23rd.

Posted 8:18 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
How to Ruin Handel's "Messiah"
This year, with recruiting behind me, I'm trying to take advantage of all that Ann Arbor, and the University of Michigan has to offer. On Friday I took in an ice hockey game, and, switching gears, yesterday attended the University Musical Society's presentation of Handel's "Messiah". UMS does a great job organizing a wide variety of live performances throughout the year (I already have tickets for the Kodo drummers' February performance).

To be fair, let me start with the positives. The musicians, a combination of the UMS Choral Union and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, were very good. The University's Hill Auditorium, having just undergone $38 million in renovations, looked gorgeous. This was my first time seeing "Messiah" from start to finish, and so I was expecting most of the songs to be more musucular, more uplifting (like "Hallelujah"), but still could enjoy the slower pieces, which were relaxing.

But, like most people out there, when you hear "Handel's 'Messiah'", you immediately think of the soaring versions of "Hallelujah" which you hear at Christmastime. That one song was 99% of the reason I bought tickets; it wasn't to hear "But thou didst not leave his soul in hell" or ""He was despised and rejected of men", as...moving...as those songs are. So I'm incensed at how the UMS decided to handle it.

Let me state, now, that I understand Ann Arbor is a very egalitarian place; I understand that "we're all winners" and the like. But we're not all opera singers. That was made clear last night, because the UMS passed out to the audience the sheet music to "Hallelujah" and invited everyone to stand and sing along with the orchestra. Thus, instead of hearing the UMS Choral Union belt it out (like I paid for), I got to hear the handful of middle aged Michiganders sitting around me who were lacking in enough self-awareness to refrain from singing (nay, yelling).

Yes, self-selection was in full effect: audience members smart enough to know they shouldn't try to sing over the choir (myself included) kept their lips shut; the only ones singing were those who think they're really good singers (see: early episodes of American Idol) and/or don't give a damn about their neighbors.

I will be asking the UMS for my money back; if I want to enjoy the communal experience of singing Hallelujah together (and don't get me wrong, I like that experience), I can go to any church around Christmas and do it for free. I paid to hear the professionals sing "Hallelujah", and am very, very disappointed by UMS' choice last night.

Posted 4:25 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Don't Forget To Take Your Porn
Consider this a Public Service Announcement:

Should you be inclined to take digital photos of a pornographic nature; and should you then be inclined to print out said photos; and should you be inclined to print them out from a self-service kiosk at, say, Kinkos; please, please be sure to get all of the printed photos, especially the final index print showing all the images you printed. This is so that other patrons, like, say, myself, don't have to see them. It's not that I'm a prude or anything, but it's just that 1. voluptious women with manly faces aren't my type, and 2. it's creepy to see "everyday" photos of your children (watching TV, brushing their teeth, etc.) interspersed with shots of four or five different 30+ year old strippers practicing their...craft.

Now back to the MBA blogging...

Posted 8:09 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
"ChumpD*ckWussDoucheGasbag*sshole..."
Yes, that's right, I was back in Yost Arena for another UM ice hockey game!


Despite recent efforts by the school administration to reign in the chanting, Yost remains pretty raucous (here is the elaborate guide to student chants, and here is the profane version). An example of one of the more tasteful chants comes after the Wolverines score; the fans taunt the goalie(2.8MB Digital Video) with "sieve" and "it's all your fault".

As for the game, Michigan royally pounded Notre Dame, 6-1. Our goalie, Al Montoya, was incredible, stopping 21 of 22 shots (we were outshot 17-16 through the first two periods, yet led 4-1).

(1.4MB Digital Video)

One other bizarre sight from the game: the Zamboni taking a dump:

(1.7MB Digital Video)

Posted 10:52 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Quick Hits 4: Future of the Democratic Party
Every American should hope for two healthy, competitive political parties championing different ideas and fighting for our votes; The New Republic's Peter Beinart just published an exceptional, insightful diagnosis of the Democratic Party's predicament (the surprising (?) national losses in 2002 and 2004). A hint: it wasn't "moral values"...

This piece is the first "must-read" of the 2006 election cycle...

Posted 9:52 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Quick Hits 3: Fourth DVD
I don't many CDs or DVDs, mainly because there's few albums or movies that I like enough to want to watch multiple times. For the longes while I've only had 3 CDs: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Chicago, and The Seven Samurai. With the newly released Zatoichi, that makes four (technically five, becuase Miramax, for whatever reason, chose to sell it packaged with Sonatine). And it's not too hard to figure out what my next DVD will be...

Posted 9:27 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Quick Hits 2: Coming Winter
Winter arrived a week or so earlier than last year, and we've already had snow flurries on several days in the past week. Worrisome. My experience last year was that November through January weren't too much worse than what you'd expect in New York, but it was the cold February, March, and April that set Ann Arbor apart. Hopefully this year, if winter is indeed arriving early, it'll be kind enough to leave by April.

Posted 9:18 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Quick Hits 1: Final Exams
By some ugly quirk of the academic calendar, final exams here at Ross fall very, very late this year. Unlike some schools, are final exam period extends up to Friday, December 23. In fact, my two Finance exams are on Thursday and Friday, the 22nd and 23rd. WTF?!