Small Coffee Trading House -> ABCD
I am a rising junior at a state school in the south. I have been in contact with a coffee trader at a very small trading house in the south. Wanted to hear perspectives of folks in the industry as to whether this would be a good way to break into the physical commodities space. I am mostly interested in ags but wouldn't want to trade coffee for the rest of my life.
In short, should I pursue an opportunity at a very small regional coffee trading house right out of school in hopes of eventually moving to an ABCD or should I pursue a graduate program/ops role at an ABCD?
If you're a junior why make it a priority to go after this coffee trading house if it sounds like something you dont really want to do? You have 2 shots to get your foot in the door with an ABCD, intern and full time. Your chances of getting a full time job at an ABCD is much higher if you get an internship over trying to lateral from coffee. Its possible to lateral from coffee to an ABCD, but its very rare, typically you see the opposite. IIRC Dreyfus is the only ABCD with a coffee desk in USA and they also have the least amount of traders here. If you dont get a spot in an ABCD program for an internship or full time, your best bet is to choose some of the smaller grain trading houses, Scoular, Anderson's, Gavilon, CHS, GPRE, CGB/Zen-noh, etc. Their names carry good weight on a resume if you're trying to get a spot at an ABCD.
As someone in coffee, I would second MC_HAMMER's suggestion - if you want to trade Ag at an ABCD, just full out pursue that. If you can't land an internship at one of those or a 2nd tier grain shop then maybe use coffee as a backup plan. While there are some concepts that definitely carry over from coffee to traditional Ag products, the two industries seem to have pretty significant structural and operation differences.
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