I'd say Houston is great to work in after you turn 30 in order to raise a family and such (high income in commodity trading, no tax, one of the cheapest housing in the country). I'm 24, currently live in NC but if I have the choice between Houston and New York I'd definitely choose Houston.

London is uber expensive and taxation is crazy, probably even more than NYC especially for 6 figures incomes...

 

It makes sense economically, but until you've lived in the big city, there's just no way to explain it. Most people either hate it or love it that I've met. And once you love it, it's very hard to break that. I've heard of people moving and they couldn't stand it, they had to move back. You gotta understand, life in NY is just so drastically different than life in other places in the US. It's like a whole 'nother world and it gets hard to adjust when you leave.

For me, I don't care what the opportunity is, I would probably not move to Houston and absolutely 100% not to small areas where some of the diff energy companies are located. I will either do something else or go back to school. I want to be happy

Edit: Chicago is a maybe that I would def entertain - BP is out there

 
Best Response

This is unbearable. To be successful you have to make sacrifices. What's next, you want a firm that's in Manhattan, with 50 hour weeks? And catered lunch?

To answer your other question, no ConEd doesn't spec power. They have a merchant function that trades more than the utility, but it's in Valhalla. PSEG (in Newark, but maybe that's too far away, GMAFB) arguably does more spec with their merchant plants.

If you want to trade in NYC, you're managing flow for a bank. A bank that doesn't care enough about commodities to have a big setup.

People we trade with in NYC: BNP (two person shop) Citadel (just opened, two people)

Let's say everything goes great and you land at Citadel. And they close up after two years? What are you going to do then? Change careers? This tread is like asking for the all of the physical commodity shops in Des Moines, because "once you've lived in Des Moines, you just wouldn't understand, there's no way I'd live outside Des Moines".

That's it. Opportunities within one hour outside NYC are dramatically greater. Either this is a full-on trolling exercise or you are some incredibly naive 22 year-old NYU grad who heard from a friend that you can make money in "physical commodities" and is too lazy to get a MetroNorth timetable.

 
YellLeaderBevoEater:

This is unbearable. To be successful you have to make sacrifices. What's next, you want a firm that's in Manhattan, with 50 hour weeks? And catered lunch?

To answer your other question, no ConEd doesn't spec power. They have a merchant function that trades more than the utility, but it's in Valhalla. PSEG (in Newark, but maybe that's too far away, GMAFB) arguably does more spec with their merchant plants.

If you want to trade in NYC, you're managing flow for a bank. A bank that doesn't care enough about commodities to have a big setup.

People we trade with in NYC:
BNP (two person shop)
Citadel (just opened, two people)

Let's say everything goes great and you land at Citadel. And they close up after two years? What are you going to do then? Change careers? This tread is like asking for the all of the physical commodity shops in Des Moines, because "once you've lived in Des Moines, you just wouldn't understand, there's no way I'd live outside Des Moines".

That's it. Opportunities within one hour outside NYC are dramatically greater. Either this is a full-on trolling exercise or you are some incredibly naive 22 year-old NYU grad who heard from a friend that you can make money in "physical commodities" and is too lazy to get a MetroNorth timetable.

First off, drop the fucking attitude. "To be successful"? What do you define as successful? Now you sound like a 22 year old.

Unlike you, I'm not willing to just dickride/do whatever to get some job - I know what makes me happy and I want to stay within that. There are other things I could do like just stay on the paper side of the business (I'm not a "22-year-old NYU grad" obviously) and do something in NY.

You don't like how I don't want to move? Fine - but keep that shit to yourself, no need in turning something that was a discussion into a pissing contest

 

I'm a physical coffee trader just outside NYC. Wildly profitable if you work for the right company and build your own book. I had great connections getting in, and a really strong customer base... Plus I get to work at ICE as a C contract grader. You should be making 200-300k with bonus after 2-3 years of trading. You need a year or two in logistics or trade clerk to learn the business, and you need to know how to cup coffee.

You don't want to work for Noble or Olam in CT but they are always hiring. As is Mitsui in Montvalle NJ. I know a guy who walked in off the street there and make over 200k his first year in coffee. They lost 15mill last quarter as a company, and the whole staff got fired, but still.

 

And why not Olam ? I recently applied to a junior trader position with them. Am very curious as to your thoughts on them. Would also want to know why not Noble. Would any of those places be a good start in the business in your opinion at least short-term?

 
Harbinger904:

And why not Olam ? I recently applied to a junior trader position with them. Am very curious as to your thoughts on them. Would also want to know why not Noble. Would any of those places be a good start in the business in your opinion at least short-term?

For their coffee division or something else? If coffee send me a message I'll hook you up with some networking and we all talk together. For a year or two it's good experience but don't waste your career there. OLAM rumors are always rampant as well, there was one last year that they were selling coffee division and / or having serious liquidity issues. These Asian mega companies make huge speculative physical short sales and they can loose 100 mill + a year if market moves against them. Really volatile. Mitsui especially is notorious for it. If you work for OLAM, Dreyfus, noble also be prepared to sell a lot of garbage robusta coffee from Vietnam and scrape a 25pt profit.

 

To answer everyone noble is certainly about to go bankrupt, and their entry pay is awful. OLAM corporate doesn't support coffee and makes stupid bets like monster investments in Sudan coffee mills, which make no sense. You want to work for a company with a good rep for quality and expertise in coffee. Dreyfus is another one who has a rep as a pure commodity house and not a coffee trading biz. It's tough to build a long lasting career in coffee when the biggest customers just go to you for price and not quality. On the other hand at Dreyfus you get to deliver huge amounts of coffee to the exchange, play switches, and really impact the futures market.

Volcafe , Rothfos, Ecom, American coffee. These may not have same brand cache but they dominate the field for centuries and pay very well with opportunities to work at dozens of origins and live like a prince with a working staff and bullet proof car. All have offices around NYC. I work for one. Then there are secondary companies like royal, paragon, Serengeti, etc. great to break in and you may make more as you can get your own book quick. The problem is the big roasters like Folgers, Kraft, nestle, Tim hortons, dd, and green mt aka the big bucks roasters won't give you the time or day on big volume trades. You deal with high risk high reward specialty roasters. They don't have origin operations (mills and export offices) and have to deal with third parties while the big guys like volcafe and Rothfos have dozens. At the big shops a young (but not jr) trader should make 150-300k with bonus and car and a ton of first class biz travel to great exotic locations. You either go into buying for a roaster or you battle for becoming a general manager / partner where you can make millions and millions. Some open their own companies with partnership agreements with the large multinationals listed above and become f you rich.

Stay away from commodity futures brokers as its a dead field, fixations and AA orders are 2 bucks a pop. Try living off that as a commission. It's why Jefferies just dumped their whole soft ag biz.

As for someone asking difference between physical and futures trading. As a physical trader you are trading physical coffee for delivery to a customer. You Hedge your forward trades with futures contracts. The two work hand in hand but physical trading is the purest form of trading in the world and the oldest. All commodities have physical markets. You physically buy coffee, import it, finance it, and sell it to major companies that roast coffee. Mr buffet and 3G are currently messing with the biz and milking finance terms, and merging major players like Kraft with Heinz and Burger King and Tim hortons

 
jackblack2129:

Are there any commodity merchants located inside NYC? I know there's many in Stamford but I'd rather not commute so far.

Neuman Rothfos, Atlantic coffee / Ecom, Succafina, and a few others are all located in NYC. Many more in NJ and CT.

Rothfos is hiring. With no experience you're looking at 75k as a trade clerk / logistics with 20-50% bonus for a year or two. Then you move to 85-120k and 75-120% bonu so 140ish to -220ish as a jr trader (if you perform obv) sky's limit from there. Enormous market and small amount of physical companies. Recession proof and a combo of legal drug dealing and high finance (hedging and financing strategies.) plus you get to cup / grade coffee all day, travel the world, and deal with fortune 100 companies as well as local coffee shops.

A trader should make 20% of his book at end of year at a min.

 
CoffeeTrader:
jackblack2129:
Are there any commodity merchants located inside NYC? I know there's many in Stamford but I'd rather not commute so far.

Neuman Rothfos, Atlantic coffee / Ecom, Succafina, and a few others are all located in NYC. Many more in NJ and CT.

Rothfos is hiring. With no experience you're looking at 75k as a trade clerk / logistics with 20-50% bonus for a year or two. Then you move to 85-120k and 75-120% bonu so 140ish to -220ish as a jr trader (if you perform obv) sky's limit from there. Enormous market and small amount of physical companies. Recession proof and a combo of legal drug dealing and high finance (hedging and financing strategies.) plus you get to cup / grade coffee all day, travel the world, and deal with fortune 100 companies as well as local coffee shops.

A trader should make 20% of his book at end of year at a min.

Why in the world am I in metals? This sounds awesome.
 

any advice for aspiring coffee traders? any books or blogs or whatever one should be reading? do you know anything about the business scene in Australia (it seems Ecom and ED&F Man have small subsidiaries down here)? i would also be really interested in hearing more about your career...

thanks :)

 
agecon:

any advice for aspiring coffee traders? any books or blogs or whatever one should be reading? do you know anything about the business scene in Australia (it seems Ecom and ED&F Man have small subsidiaries down here)? i would also be really interested in hearing more about your career...

thanks :)

Volcafe (man) has a good office there but it's specialty based, so tiny volume high margins. Problem is Australia isn't a big importer. I suggest applying to all the big names I mentioned above for their trainee programs. They are very tough to get into, top 25 schools, 4.0, and passion for commodities... Or a connection. If you get accepted they will send you to origin. Probably Papua New Guinea or Indonesia for someone from Australia. Living in origin is an amazing experience. You get paid tax free, have a free huge house, hired staff (driver, guards, maids, cooks) and labor is so cheap down there you can bring on an entire staff for a few hundred bucks a YEAR, in some places like east Africa. You spend a few years at your first origin and then you either get promoted to manage your own (there's like 20) and you get to run a major organization, with internal buying of coffee from farms and coops, managing giant mills for processing coffee, and your trade book with importers / trade houses like me. You can make big money and once you reach gm you get big stock options . These large companies are always merging or selling portions and I have seen people make fortunes.

Another way to get in is via merchant lending. Brown Brothers Harriman dominates the coffee lending market in America, and their commodity guys get to travel the world as well. You get a great salary as well, and can work at a place that supported some of the greatest commodity companies and schemes in the world. If you make partner you join a pretty rare set of men / women. President bushs grandfather was one, and many others. As a private bank (the worlds largest) it actually made money During the recession and is pretty responsible with its lending compared to its bigger cousins. very hard to stick at BBH though, need same requirements as I listed above.

Best thing about this industry is work / life balance is excellent. The coffee trading side you usually work 40-50 hours a week at a desk , as a larger trader you can work from home often / anywhere with Internet. Some of the largest guys I know work 10 hours a week at an office because their books are on autopilot. Hardest part is getting initial trust is a customer. Also to be clear since this is a global commodity oh are texting, skyping, emailing, what'sapping, 24 hours a day. Major producer markets like Vietnam and Indonesia are doing business while the east coast of America is sleeping. Market is open very early for ny and stays open till 130 pm. That's the busiest time. 95% of actual selling is done globally during these NYC hours when ICE is trading

 

Can sympathise with the OP, moving to the middle of nowhere in the UK to learn the ropes with an ABCD company in ags but dreading not being in London in my early 20s.

 

Hartree, J. Aron, BNP, Lukoil, TD Securities metals desk (i think) all options in NYC proper. MS is out in Purchase. As someone mentioned earlier PSEG is in Newark (depending where you live in the city it can be short as a 25 minute commute), also they don't really spec very much. I think they have like 1 or 2 real spec traders. Everyone else there just hedges and optimizes assets/positions. Most of the banks that left commodities still have commod index traders, but you're mainly trading vol not really fundamental commod trading doing that. If you aren't willing to go Westchester/Fairfield county maybe try trading bonds, because you aren't going to have much luck in NYC. Also don't discount Houston, it's incredibly hot but once you get past that its a great city. It's the 4th soon to be 3rd biggest city in the USA and extremely affordable. (nb: im a rt power trader in the metro nyc area, so I have no houston bias)

 

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