"The Pulse" -- #85 / Snapshot of the Global Economy

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Wells Fargo, UBS, Barclays, Centerview Partners, and 8 others opened their summer 2026 apps. 49 firms are actively recruiting for summer 2026 positions. This was our biggest update this year

• You should have completed all HireVues / placement tests by now, be sure to reach out for coaching! First round interviews are active across a few of the boutiques

New SA 2026 Applications:

• Wells Fargo: Large balance sheet bank (SA 2026)

• UBS: Large Swiss bank, recently acquired Credit Suisse (SA 2026)

• Barclays: Bulge bracket British bank (SA 2026)

• Macquarie: Large Australian bank (SA 2026)

• Raymond James: Middle market, full service bank (SA 2026)

• Baird: Middle market, Wisconsin-based bank (SA 2026)

• Navagant Advisors: Small Richmond-based boutique (SA 2026)

• Eastdil Secured: Real estate focused M&A advisory (SA 2026)

• Keybank: Large, full service bank (SA 2026)

• Centerview Partners: Elite boutique, #1 in EB M&A league tables in 2024 (SA 2026)

• Scotiabank: Canadian middle market bank (SA 2026)

• Howden Tiger: Insurance-focused boutique (SA 2026)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 300+ 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:

• 56 SA 2025 applications have been released along with 62 FT 2025 apps. For all intents and purposes this process is complete. Again, firms could be hiring for one-off associate roles, but the classes have been filled. If you haven’t locked up a position you should focus on recruiting for any strategy/analytical roles at established, well-known firms. This will set you up nicely to recruit for FT consulting roles next year

• 2026 Recruiting has started but is in the very early days. There are 2 open applications–we don’t expect additional apps to open for a few months

SA 2025 released apps:

• None

FT 2025 released apps:

• None

SA 2026 released apps:

• None

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Citadel, Vista Equity, HarbourVest Partners, and 3 others opened their SA 2026 applications. Currently 34 buyside firms are recruiting for SA 2026 seats 

New SA 2026 released apps:

• Citadel: Kenny G’s monster HF, equity L/S intern (SA 2026)

• Vista Equity: Austin-based, tech focused PE firm (SA 2026)

• HarbourVest Partners: PE secondaries intern (SA 2026)

• Group One Trading: Equity options trading intern (SA 2026)

• Fidelity: $4.9tn AUM asset manager, equity research intern (SA 2026)

• Brinley Parnters: Middle market private credit shop (SA 2026)

The database is updated weekly and contains 300+ 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 85th 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 $65 Credit Card / Debit Card: (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com) that grants you annual access to the updated database (please reach out for additional payment options). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $65.

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:

Snapshot of the Global Economy

What’s the world up to?

Little bit of a different format this week. Today, we are going to provide an overview of the state of the global economy across the 3 largest economic centers (US, China, and the Eurozone).

First, the USA:

The largest economy in the world with an estimated GDP of $30tn.

Key Stats:

• GDP/Capita: ~$90,000 (increase from last year)

• CPI (Inflation Rate): 2.7% YoY (decrease from last year)

• Unemployment: 4.2% (increase from last year)

• Federal Funds Rate (Interest Rate): 4.25 - 4.50% (decrease from last year)

In 2024, lower inflation, 100bps of rate cuts, pass-through inflationary costs on behalf of a strong consumer, and AI excitement all buoyed dominant market performance when compared to China and Europe (the next largest economic hubs).

Imagine you’re on a flight and you arrive 45 minutes early to your destination. What do you feel?

You’re ecstatic. Maybe you even splurge a bit at the duty-free on the way out.

That’s my best way to describe U.S. markets in 2024.

The fact that we dodged the ‘most predicted recession in history’ throughout 2023 and 2024 provided tremendous momentum to the markets. Plus, we are experiencing active stimulus via rate cuts to further juice the engine.

Now, let’s talk China:

The 2nd largest economy in the world at a ~$19.5tn GDP (much higher growth rate than the US).

Key Stats:

• GDP/Capita: ~$14,000 (increase from last year)

• CPI (Inflation Rate): 0.2% YoY (increase from last year)

• Unemployment: 5.0% (flat from last year)

• China Loan Prime Rate (Interest Rate): 3.10% (decrease from last year)

China isn’t receiving much economic support from the hungriest economy on the planet.

As discussed here: "The Pulse" --#77 / U.S. & Mexico ❤️, the U.S. and China have had a rocky relationship since 2017, which was exacerbated throughout Covid, and is still shitty today with imposed tariffs ~60% on all Chinese goods. Also, China fucked up internally.

Since 2022, they’ve been navigating a substantial repricing of their property market (commercial and residential). This is a huge blow for a nation where 70% of its peoples’ wealth is concentrated within housing. But why did the property market get smoked?

A familiar tale of leverage caused the collapse. As the world hiked rates to fight elevated inflation in 2022, China’s property developers were caught swimming naked and unable to service their debt. Property values fell accordingly.

Compound this event with an oversupply of Chinese goods and we arrive at China’s shockingly low rate of inflation at 0.2% YoY. It’s widely believed this is an inflationary figure too (you get it?) as China was battling deflation last year and the government might be trying to cover things up.

That leads me back to this chart:

Economic stimulus. To combat the tumbling economy, China cut its base rates from 3.45% → 3.1% and announced a liquidity program to encourage stock repurchases. Market values skyrocketed as a result.

But will these changes actually fix anything? That’s TBD.

Ok, moving onto the EuroZone:

This includes a whole consortium of countries with a total GDP of ~$15tn (please note this does not include the UK).

Key Stats:

• GDP/Capita: ~$44,000 (increase from last year)

• CPI (Inflation Rate): 2.2% YoY (decrease from last year)

• Unemployment: 6.3% (decrease from last year)

• Main Refinancing Operations Rate (Interest Rate): 3.15% (decrease from last year)

My commentary here is practically unchanged from last year. Europe has largely tracked the U.S., just a touch shittier.

Europe is a wild place. There are countless cultures and languages, but everyone lowkey contributes to the same economy. Growth in Europe is tough to come by these days. The Mag 7 of the U.S. is 20x larger than Europe’s Mag 7.

In fact, there isn’t really much for me to discuss here that is new or original.

Two topics of discussion are:

The Euro is historically cheap compared to the dollar as the value of the dollar has strengthened with U.S. exceptionalism. Better book those flights sooner than later to capitalize on this.

Geographic proximity to regions of conflict (Russia vs. Ukraine and Israel vs. Hamas), lack of demand from China, and greater rate hangover due to widespread shorter debt maturities have all beaten into Europe’s economic performance.

For an interview, be sure to explain how economies are interlinked and have a view on what divergence in performance across key economies means for our future. 

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

Private Markets vs. Public Markets

Without a doubt, if you work in areas of finance such as investment banking or management consulting, you will certainly deal with both private and public companies. Understanding the key aspects of private markets vs. public markets will be essential for your career development.

We are going to take the lens of an investment professional within the private or public markets.

Private Markets:

• Company Size: $0 - $120bn (huge range)

• Type of Company: Most of your venture-backed or PE-sponsored companies will lie within the private markets

• Characteristics: Your AVERAGE private company is on the smaller side $5-500mm EBITDA, maybe only a regional presence, and usually focused on growth (sometimes at the cost of profitability)

• Jobs: Private equity, private credit, hedge funds, venture capital, and growth equity

• Hold Period: 5-10 years

• Strategy: Buy a large stake in a company, deploy revenue/cost synergies to operationally improve it, sell that company or IPO it at a higher valuation to take profit on the investment (funny enough, most value is just created from buying a business at a low multiple and selling it to some other shmuck at a higher multiple when the market heats up)

Public Markets:

• Company Size: $250mm - $1.0tn (equally massive range)

• Type of Company: Typically more mature, cash flow positive enterprises. Lots of investors comprising small portions of the cap table

• Characteristics: Your AVERAGE public company has a realizable business model with a focus on profitability to return value to shareholders. Usually much more of a household name

• Jobs: Hedge funds, asset management, most banking gigs, and day trader on WSB

• Hold Period: seconds → lifetimes (depends on the investor/shop)

• Strategy: Buy smaller stakes in many large companies across a diverse array of industries with the goal of performing alongside the S&P 500 index or marginally better than it. Very little focus on going into a business to operationally improve it

That’s a quick top-down of the private vs. public markets. Recently there has been a much greater focus on private markets as companies are seeing less advantages of being public + the flow of capital is moving towards the private markets.

There is no perfect situation.

Within the private markets, you have less liquidity and more pressure to actually help build a business. However, you have the control to hide your losses by not selling a business and there is the potential to be greatly compensated for your illiquidity premium.

In the public markets, you can exit a shitty position within seconds and never have to worry about actually building a business. However, you need to follow earnings quarterly and your decisions are tested in real-time where positions can evaporate overnight.

Going Forward:

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

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

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“The Pulse” #85