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"The Pulse" --#66 / Goods vs. Services Inflation

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The Pulse
September 01, 2024

Early Bird Sales!

SA 2026 interview szn is fast approaching! Don’t fall behind your competition by wasting time tracking applications.

  1. For the next month, we will be running a 30% sale for the purchase of our Premium Database. Details of our Premium Database can be found below. Venmo @ThePulsePrep $35 or pay with credit card Premium Database 30% Sale ---Stripe.com and shoot us an e-mail @[email protected]

Video of Premium Database——>The Pulse Database Video

  1. Pay for 3 coaching sessions, get one FREE! For the next month, we will be offering an exclusive offer to pay $150 to receive 4 coaching sessions with a current or future analyst (Venmo @ThePulsePrep or pay with credit card: (Coaching Bundle $150 for 4 Sessions). Interviews are right around the corner and we want you to be as prepared as possible. Last year, 95% of those coached received offers!

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

  • SA 2026: Only one bank, HL, has announced the release date of its application (check "The Pulse" --#64 (FIRST SA 2026 APP) / Turnover in Finance (beehiiv.com) for detail.

    You should be sending 3-5 networking messages a day. We just refreshed our Premium Database to include contacts of VPs, associates, and analysts to network with across 200+ banks. Check below for more detail.

  • SA 2025: Configure Partners and Huntington Bank opened their applications this week. This process is 99% complete and we will stop tracking as summer 2026 volume picks up. The total bank number is at 122 for the SA 2025 season.

  • FT 2025: HUGE WEEK. Houlihan Lokey, Ducera, TAP Advisors, and more opened their FT apps this week. There are currently 45 firms actively recruiting for FT 2025. Please reach out if you are looking for coaching!

New SA 2026 Applications:

  • None

New SA 2025 Applications:

  • Configure Partners: Boutique; M&A focus (SA 2025)

  • Huntington Bank: Regional bank (SA 2025)

New FT 2025 Applications:

  • Houlihan Lokey: Strong boutique, good Rx group (FT 2025)

  • Ducera: Restructuring boutique (FT 2025)

  • TAP Advisors: Boutique (FT 2025)

  • Citizens Bank: Middle-market (FT 2025)

  • Configure Partners: Boutique; M&A focus (FT 2025)

  • DBD Partners: Boutique (FT 2025)

  • Intrepid Investment Bankers: Small boutique (FT 2025)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 200+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

  • Relatively quiet week given recruiting is in full swing. 40 SA 2025 applications have been released along with 39 FT 2025 apps. Remember that almost all applications are rolling so the earlier you apply, the more likely you are to receive an interview.

*We updated the networking contacts in the premium database so take advantage of that resource.

SA 2025 released apps:

  • Triangle Insights Group: Summer Strategy Analyst

FT 2025 released apps:

  • Accenture Federal Services: Consulting Analyst

  • Semler Brossy Consulting Group: Associate Consultant

  • KCIC: Consultant

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

  • SA 2026: KKR announced its SA 2026 Webinar Series! Although not an application, this is certainly an indicator that they’re gearing up to release their SA 2026 app in due time.

  • SA 2025: Advent International, Yellow Wood Partners, Verition, and many others opened their SA 2025 apps this week. This brings the total buyside count to ~142 opened applications.

New SA 2025 released apps:

  • Advent International: PE, elite firm (SA 2025)

  • Yellow Wood Partners: LMM PE (SA 2025)

  • Sagard: Multi-strat asset manager (SA 2025)

  • MidCap Financial: PC (SA 2025)

  • Volition: L/S hedge fund (SA 2025)

  • Whitman: REPE (SA 2025)

  • Canyon Partners: RE Investing (SA 2025)

  • Domain Capital Group: Invesment Intern (SA 2025)

  • Horizon Investments: Asset manager (SA 2025)

Premium Database:

The database is updated weekly and contains 200+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

  • Interview tips for specific companies

  • Interview prep material

  • Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

  • Insider information about the application process

  • Professionals to network with

  • Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 66th update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

To get access to the database and the weekly updates, you pay a one-time fee of $35 (Venmo: ThePulsePrep / Credit Card: (Premium Database 30% Sale ---Stripe.com) that grants you annual access to the updated database (You can enable purchase protection if concerned). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $35.

This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!

Video of Premium Database——>The Pulse Database Video

Market Update:

Goods vs. Services Inflation

Rate cuts are top of mind for everyone. We hold firm in our view that there will be ~75bps of cuts by the end of 2024 ("The Pulse" --#28 (beehiiv.com) and "The Pulse" --#29 (beehiiv.com).

The CPI stands at 2.9% and the PCE stands at 2.5%. In "The Pulse"--#48 (beehiiv.com), we broke down the differences between these two measures.

Instead of discussing broader rate movements and effects, today we are going to dive into goods vs. services inflation. After all, what does inflation even mean if we don’t know where it’s coming from?

Services Inflation is Sticky

As we can see, goods are broadly experiencing disinflation (deflation in some areas) and services are sticky af.

What’s Happening with Goods Inflation?: 

To understand this, we need to take a brief walk through the last few years starting with 2020. In 1Q20, the pandemic broke out forcing everyone to sit around and do jack shit.

No one spent money on anything besides cleaning products. At the same time, the government started printing money and writing checks to anyone with a pulse to “support the economy in these unprecedented times.” This led to a huge build up in consumer savings. 

Personal Savings Rate 20%+ During Pandemic

As the pandemic dragged on, people eventually realized that they wouldn’t be able to DO anything for a while (services), but they could still buy THINGS (goods). Extra money in the pocket + extra demand + extra savings + heightened raw materials and transportation costs = tremendous goods inflation throughout 2021 and 2022 as you can see in the graph above.

People bought anything from VR headsets to Gucci bags. Look around your house and I can guarantee you have some pandemic-era purchases laying around.

Wouldn’t heightened demand lead to extra supply? Yes, but the infrastructure was flawed. Worldwide supply chain inefficiencies and the lack of production from China ("The Pulse" --#29 (beehiiv.com) kept costs high despite the attempt to boost production. So, goods inflation was rampant in 2021 and 2022.

However, numbers started cooling off in 2023 and 2024 as worldwide supply chains were repaired and “mask up” mandates were cancelled. People were itching to DO things and no longer had the savings to continue buying random discretionary goods (shit).

These factors led to a cooling of goods inflation.

What’s Happening with Services Inflation?:

Services inflation is a simple story. Wage growth + heightened demand for services = greater services inflation.

YoY Wage Growth of 4.7% in July

With wage growth of 4.7%, employees are demanding above-inflation increases to their salaries. To preserve margins, employers push up the prices of the services they offer.

Unlike goods, services are less ‘tradeable'. You can’t really replace your chiropractor in the same way you can replace buying apples at Trader Joes with buying apples at Walmart.

Services are inherently less commoditized than goods.

So, as long as the labor market is strong and demand is consistent, services inflation will remain sticky.

Will these trends continue? It all boils down to rate cuts at this point. If the FED were to never cut rates, then unemployment would grow, employers would cut back on wage hikes, people would have less money to buy goods and services, and inflation would fall.

The reverse happens when rates are cut——to an extent. The macro is fun!

For an interview, know the components of your typical CPI or PCE index and understand whether goods or services are really driving the changes.

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

Learning Point of the Week:

Why X Firm?

IMO, this is one of the hardest behavioral questions to answer across banking, consulting, and buyside interviews.

In reality, 95% of us would just take the first offer we receive—beggars can’t be choosers.

The way I approach it?

“I had the opportunity to speak with A, B, and C at [X firm] and they really honed in on the tremendous culture of……”

What I’m getting at is that the best way to answer this question is to name drop the people you’ve networked with. This shows that you’ve put in the time and are genuinely interested in the people at [X] firm.

  • Within banking, the role of an analyst is extremely similar across the respective tiers. Life at a BB is really similar to life at another BB, life at an EB is really similar to life at another EB, etc. Therefore, it can be challenging to really form a genuine answer for ‘why [X firm]?’

  • Within consulting, the role of an associate can be differentiated across the various firms. So name dropping those you’ve networked with and marrying that with some of the unique aspects of a given firm is critical

  • Within the buyside, answering ‘why [X firm]’ requires the same consideration as consulting. Definitely name drop those you’ve networked with, but also touch upon the ‘unique’ investment strategy of the fund—-which they print all over their website

Don’t do too much brain damage with this question. Use it as an opportunity to demonstrate that you’ve networked with people at the firm. Do not go into some long tirade yapping about how [X] firm did $Xbn of deals last year blah, blah, blah.

Going Forward:

If you run a club, we want to connect with you to partner. Please shoot us an email @[email protected], would love to make your club the most prepared on campus.

Coaching Details:

Students we coached for SA 2025 have received offers at Goldman, JP Morgan, Evercore, and many other firms. Roughly 95% of those coached received offers last year!

Please reach out to us with any questions about recruiting or if you’re interested in meeting the team! ([email protected])

We are happy to chat, review resumes, or help set up a coaching session

Check us out on LinkedIn (The Pulse) and Instagram (ThePulse) too!

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The Pulse

“The Pulse” #66