23 Comments
 

It seems to cover the following: Students must complete four courses to earn the certificate:

Introduction to Commodities & Technical Analysis Directional Trades and Trend Following Commodity Spreads and Seasonal Trades Building a Complete Risk Management Trading System

All the the aforementioned concepts are covered comprehensively in just one book: Schwager on Futures. I've personally spoken to Michael Covel and emailed Michael Martin and they both are masters of marketing façades.

 

Would this certificate help with recruitment? Or is it just something you can learn from a book?

"All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work."
 
Best Response

There was a post somewhere on WSO on the rigors of being a physical trader that I'm not sure I can do justice to. But essentially, I think it takes a certain kind of person to be successful in physical trading. Breaking in alone can be difficult, but going from ops to being a trader at a top shop is not for the faint-hearted. It means coping with major responsibility as quickly possible, often juggling a very, very wide variety of problems at the same time, needing to be decisive often and quickly, making as few mistakes as possible, and last but not least, making money for your team on top of your day to day responsibilities. All this while being liked by your counterparties.

People who don't make it to trader at top shops either stay in ops or go to lesser shops and take on commercial roles there. Very often those can be great gigs, but if you don't like ops or hustling for business at a smaller place, you might regret your decision to get on this career path in the first place.

At the end of the day, there are few really good seats for each commodity, and if you want one, you are going to have to live and breathe that commodity for years on end and be truly driven. Just something to keep in mind going in.

 

Cargill would not be a bad route. They have traders/merchandisers in different areas. I assume you would have to spend some time in Minnesota.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

Are you talking about paper of physical? If you mean trading commodity derivatives such as futures or options (seasonal spreads, whatever) then be careful to not get scammed by some technical analysis guru.

Where do you want to work? A financial institution that invests and/or offers services in commodities? Maybe you want to work as a trader for a non-financial f500 company that helps the company hedge their risk against price fluctuations (e.g. hedge crude-oil prices for FedEx). Maybe you want to work for a company such as Trafigura that is engaged in physical (including logistical) trading as well as hedging their future physical contracts with paper.

What industry are you pursuing? Check out companies like Cargill, McGraw, LouisDreyfus HB (I believe JPM owns a quarter of them), Phibro ($Hall$), Transfigura, etc.... very different business models even though all in commodities. Then you can structure your studies to better fit their needs.

Consider taking an international commodity trading course at a CC to learn about the fundamentals of the business.

 
mb666Are you talking about paper of physical? If you mean trading commodity derivatives such as futures or options (seasonal spreads, whatever) then be careful to not get scammed by some technical analysis guru.

Where do you want to work? A financial institution that invests and/or offers services in commodities? Maybe you want to work as a trader for a non-financial f500 company that helps the company hedge their risk against price fluctuations (e.g. hedge crude-oil prices for FedEx). Maybe you want to work for a company such as Trafigura that is engaged in physical (including logistical) trading as well as hedging their future physical contracts with paper.

What industry are you pursuing? Check out companies like Cargill, McGraw, LouisDreyfus HB (I believe JPM owns a quarter of them), Phibro ($Hall$), Transfigura, etc.... very different business models even though all in commodities. Then you can structure your studies to better fit their needs.

Consider taking an international commodity trading course at a CC to learn about the fundamentals of the business.

What do you mean by "CC"?

 

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