Ag Commodity traders, what do you enjoy the most about your job?
Hey all, currently an Ag Economics student at a smaller Midwest state school looking to work in commodities trading. I'm curious about what the best part of doing what you do is. I accepted an Internship working with physical commodities, and I'm excited to learn more about the business.
Back when I was a young trainee, nothing gave me more glee than ripping off a sanctimonious prick of a farmer with a really punitive discount schedule.
Kidding aside, if you are at Gavilon or Scoular or ANDE the best thing you can do is be a sponge. Ask dumbass questions, don't be scared to clarify when someone uses jargon that you don't use. If someone says something you don't know, don't just nod your head....ask them what they mean when they talk about trading through an inverse.
IDK if this is helpful, but try not to get lost in the grind of calling truckers or getting load numbers if you are on a cross-country team. Get your head around the market by asking a billion questions. The head traders will share if they realize you are inquisitive and not a total freak show. I promise the bar to getting hired is low...however, once you are hired the bar to make a ton of $$ is high.
But what do you enjoy most about your job now?
- the relationships internally
- making good money
- owning my schedule/performance
Thank you this is very valuable!
People, relationships and negotiating everyday. When you go to a dinner and discuss business while also having a good time.
Hello! Do you think commodity derivatives traders require high levels of mathematics, quantitative and coding skills? Much appreciated!
These guys are talking physical trading. Derivatives is a whole different ball game, and yes, that ball game is quantitative in nature
For me it's traveling a lot in Central and South America, negotiating and structuring deals, and competing against other traders/competitors for business.
Your book specific to latam or is that just where you enjoy traveling to the most?
My book is just specific to latam with some smaller domestic stuff as well.
3 things for me
Getting a deal done when you are stepping in on risk and getting your view on initially or wrapping it up at the end.
Talking to counterparties and giving each other insight on developments you weren’t even aware of or consider irrelevant, so lots of learning.
Specific to career development as opposed to on the job stuff, but I love how much responsibility I’ve been given so early in my career.
Do you think commodity trading requires quant/math skills? Much appreciated!
My undergrad background is applied math and as of now I trade a very liquid physical market but I don’t think it’s useful for commodity trading.
Congrats on the internship! Are you going to be on the Merchandising/Trading or Commercial (Milling, Crush Plants, etc.) side of the business?
I used to trade at an ABCD before moving to energy and thought the most enjoyable part was executing on a larger geographical arbitrage play. It's a pretty surreal feeling to go from identifying an opportunity to actually shipping or receiving hundreds of thousands of bushels of grains/oilseeds at a material profit within a number of days. A specific example comes from when I was a Trainee at a flour mill in the rural midwest - we were running low on wheat late in the crop year and local basis was trading at about +125K. Asked around a bit and was able to source some SRW out of Toledo on a shuttle (25 railcar train) at +85K CIF, which helped us cover inventory up through harvest in June and gave our ops team some flexibility in transitioning the mill to process new crop wheat. I genuinely liked my counterparts at Scoular and a few of the co-ops in the area, but it absolutely felt great beating them on that one and forcing them to unload some inventory at a (presumed) loss.
What you covering in energy now?
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