Since 2005, David Donovan has worked for Publicis Sapient. The executive vice president at the Boston company, he gained a wealth of financial experience during his time as a senior trader for Fidelity Investments. At Fidelity, David Donovan handled both sell-side and buy-side equity and institutional trading.
Institutional traders are responsible for buying and selling securities on behalf of an account they manage. This account may serve a mutual fund, bank, insurance company, retirement fund, or hedge fund. In essence, institutional traders make financial decisions for a group of individuals. Due to their important position, they have access to securities that other traders do not, like swaps and forwards, and they have more access to IPOs. Further, since they have greater negotiating power, they can guarantee better prices and execution of investment activities for the institutions they are serving.
On the other hand, people who invest for their personal account and not for another organization or company are retail traders. They predominantly invest in bonds, options, stocks, and futures. Many retail traders have little or no access to IPOs.
