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Inventory | Interns
The Wall Street Skinny
May 02, 2025
This Week on The Floor
S&P500 back above pre-“Liberation Day” levels: is tariff pain over, or has it even begun?
Top 10 tips for converting your summer internship into a full-time offer
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Markets Recap / Deal News
Interviewing this week? Here’s some content for your conversation.
Why the Market’s Rebound Doesn’t Mean Tariff Pain Is Over
Markets have been on a rollercoaster following the tariff announcements (Jen has aged in dog years). Yet major equity indices have rebounded to levels from before tariffs were first introduced. That might seem reassuring…but it shouldn’t be.
The truth is, the real economic impact of the tariffs hasn’t hit yet. And the reason is simple: inventory.
When companies — whether it’s Big Tech or a small business — want to make a sale, they typically want product on hand. That means stocking up on raw materials or placing manufacturing orders, often months in advance. Many firms anticipated tariffs and front-loaded inventory.
But that buffer? It’s only temporary.
You can actually see how long this buffer is via a metric called Inventory Days, which shows how many days’ worth of inventory a company is holding.
The formula is: Inventory Days = (Inventory / COGS) × Days in Period
Take Nike, a company that manufactures in Vietnam. Vietnam was hit with the global 10% tariffs plus some additional reciprocal amount (exact % is TBD as Trump threw a 90 day pause to negotiate with countries).
At the end of Q1, Nike had $7.5 billion in inventory and $6.6 billion in cost of goods sold. The inventory days formula then becomes:
Inventory Days = ($7.5bn / $6.6bn) x 90 (days in Q1) = 102
102 days of inventory is about 3.5 months of product. As they plan for that to run out, they need to reorder.
And that’s when the real economic hit begins.
We’re actually starting to see troubling signs in the shipping industry, as shipments from China are expected to drop 35% next week. And the problem is lead time. After all, it takes a while for boats to make it here. Many companies actually need to be planning for back to school and even the holiday season now.
To see why shipping is down, let’s consider Munchkin, a baby products company that manufactures in China. Their tariff rate is currently set at 145%. So if they order $100,000 worth of goods, they now owe $100k to the factory plus $145k in U.S. tariffs — for a total cost of $245,000. And it’s the U.S. importer paying that, not the Chinese manufacturer. This is what has led to many companies deciding to just stop shipments all together, hoping for these tariffs imposed unilaterally by the US to be dropped.
Sure, companies can try to renegotiate pricing — but Chinese factories can’t cut their costs by 145%.
That leaves U.S. businesses with few options: raise prices, eat the cost (unsustainable), or cut orders entirely — potentially leading to layoffs and company closures. Shifting supply chains takes time and money, something many companies just don’t have. Policy uncertainty only makes it harder to plan.
🚨 Bottom line: Just because the market has bounced back doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. As inventory levels fall and companies are forced to re-engage with the tariff-hit supply chain, expect to see the real pain emerge: higher prices, product shortages, and growing strain on both businesses and consumers.
Top 10 Tips for Turning Your Summer Internship into a Full-Time Offer
Jen here — for those of you who know me, many will recall that I didn’t get the return offer from my junior year summer internship. Yet only five years later, I found myself in charge of the all the summer interns rotating through the desks on the trading floor at the exact same firm I’d once interned for.
I’ve had the experience of being unworthy of a return offer, and I’ve seen what differentiates the great summer interns from the good…and the terrible.
Here, we’ve distilled down the top ten tips for success for those of you hoping to convert your internship into a full time offer:
1) Internships are not always structured like school…yet you’re still being graded. Not given a project? Feeling underutilized? Advocate for yourself. Ask for ways to showcase what you’re learning. Pay attention to what your desk is working on, and assign yourself a project based on one of those topics.
2) It IS a popularity contest. Build relationships with as many people across multiple desks as you can across a range of roles and seniority. You want lots of hands raised in support of you returning to the firm in whatever capacity possible.
3) The work doesn’t end on the desk. Take advantage of any and all networking opportunities. Reach out to people across the firm for coffee chats. Any time you’re invited along on a desk outing — whether it be a formal event or a drink after work — try to join in with enthusiasm.
4) Read the room. Everyone seems busy and stressed? Maybe not the best time to ask someone to take time away from work to answer your questions or teach you. Make a list of questions and find a more appropriate time to ask them. Basic or procedural questions? Ask the junior people. More complex, thematic, business level questions? Ask the senior people.
5) Add value in any way you can. Most desks aren’t comfortable giving you high stakes, client facing assignments. But there are still endless ways to help the team. Yes, there’s the classic coffee/lunch orders, but there are also non client-facing internal projects you might be working on. Treat those as though the stakes are life and death, and prove you can be trusted with real work.
6) Soft skills > technicals. As long as you demonstrate an ability to learn quickly, what you’re really being evaluated on is: “Do I want to sit next to you for 12-14 hours a day?” and “Can I trust you?” Remember people’s names after one introduction. Use proper email etiquette, addressing people in descending order of seniority. Show up first, leave last. And if you make a mistake, own up to it immediately.
7) “Try 3 before me”. This was a rule I saw posted in a second grade classroom that applies to your internship. Have a question? Try three different ways of figuring it out before you ask someone to take time away from their work to answer it. Pause and try to logic it out. Utilize your access to resources online and in podcasts. Ask your peers. And present the question along with others you may have in order to make the most of someone else’s time.
8) Be open to learning new things. Didn’t get assigned to the desk you THOUGHT you wanted? Might be a blessing. Rather than pouting and finagling to get more facetime with the group you thought was “best”, be open to possibilities. You might discover something that’s a better fit for your personality or captures your interest. Or you might just meet the mentor who will drive your entire career forward.
9) Bond with your fellow summer interns. Chances are, you’re surrounded by the future leaders of Wall Street. Bare minimum? You’ve made a new friend with unlimited potential upside. You never know how valuable those relationships might be one day.
10) Be prepared. Want a leg up on the competition? Spend the days ahead of your internship start date reading and learning as much as you can. Start learning HERE to get desk-ready, confident, and poised to maximize your odds of securing that return offer!
Good luck this summer!!