Idle Thoughts Of An Idle OAP5 Nov 2025 16:39
Meanwhile, Nvidia’s valuation is now larger than Germany’s entire annual economic output in 2025 ($4.66bn). Put another way, the market capitalization of Nvidia is two and a half times the market capitalization of every publicly traded company in Germany put together, roughly $2.04tn in 2024, per the World Bank. How can one company be worth more than the world’s third largest economy, a nation of 83.5 million people, a country whose economy forms the financial backstop of an entire continent?
Reminds me of when the value of property in Tokyo was higher than all the property in the USA.
An Oxford don in charge of mathematical finance told the FT that almost all his students ended up working at quant trading firms, on salaries from £250,000 to £800,000. “If you get offered a salary less than £250K, you’re kind of the sad guy,” he said, adding that “nobody I know interviews for JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs … not once do I hear anybody entertain any of these traditional investment banking jobs.”
The lure is obvious: 45-year-old billionaire trader Alex Gerko earned £682m from his City quant firm XTX Markets last year. Harder to grasp is that modest salaries in once respectable professions now function to deter people from the very graduate careers they once defined. On the FT’s front page, employers warned that graduate entrants to City bluechips earn a median yearly salary of £33,000, not much more than the new £26,400 minimum wage.
My son is qualified to do an MSc in Mathematical & Computational Finance at Oxford but what are his chances of being accepted? Over 700 applications for 59 places.
I'm worried about my granddaughter who's taking a gap year - going to University is looking less and less attractive apart from the social side. But ending up £thousands in debt only to find your immediate superior worked their way up the company with no debt must be galling. Anyway, stuff immediate superiors - what do they know? Start your own company! And then put in a cheeky offer for ZIOC! At least it will get the ball rolling. GLA!