F&PA - trade floor

Hello all,

I've been working for a fortune 5 oil company for the past 17 months or so (started right out of college). I have worked in Treasury the entire time as a commercial credit analyst, supporting our NGL commercial group. I will soon start an F&PA Fuel Oil Analyst role on the trade floor in a few weeks. I will basically be doing PnL and Risk related projects for the Fuel Oil & Bunker trade group. I am excited about the opportunity but I am not completely content.

I have just cleared CFA level 1 and have signed up for level 2 in June. Also, I plan on starting my MBA in 2014. I've always wanted to do IBD but now the course my career is taking I am reconsidering some of this. There are some very interesting roles on the trade floor that I am very interested in, market analysis being one of them.

I guess my question is what exits opps do you all think I can possibly have, both, pre-MBA and post-MBA?

Hedge Funds seem interesting but I am also very interested in Corp Development but I don't think staying in the Commercial organization will be too helpful in getting to Corp Dev...any thoughts on this?

Any insight is appreciated....thanks.

pacman

  • I posted this on the corporate finance forum last week but only got one response (that place is a dead-zone).
 
GoodBread:
So you're saying you'd rather not become a trader?

I'm saying that I hadn't considered it before. I was always focused on eventually getting to the business development side of things. My question is: what type of exit opps would I have after this type of role?

I just have found out that our Commercial organization has its own business development side....where we decide whether or not to invest in pipelines, acquire plants, terminals, vessels etc...this seems very interesting now.

What type of financials firms look to hire people who acquire this type of background?

 
Best Response
pacman007:
GoodBread:
So you're saying you'd rather not become a trader?

I'm saying that I hadn't considered it before. I was always focused on eventually getting to the business development side of things. My question is: what type of exit opps would I have after this type of role?

I just have found out that our Commercial organization has its own business development side....where we decide whether or not to invest in pipelines, acquire plants, terminals, vessels etc...this seems very interesting now.

What type of financials firms look to hire people who acquire this type of background?

BD/Origination is a lot more complicated than that. It's the closest to investment banking at a VP/MD level you could get in this business.

None, BD is focused on physical assets and physical market strategies. You are of no value to a financial firm, unless they have a physical arm or business.

Based on your questions seems you are still bit to confused or "green" to the industry what exactly marketing firms do to make $$$, may want to give it 6months in this role then start asking these questions.

Oh yah, one last thing. Just to be clear you are not in "commercial" you are not doing work aligned with the risk appetite of commercial nor apart of the commercial bonus pool. So really the first "exit opp" you should look for is to clearly get into a commercial role. Think of it this way you are on the floor near the traders and working with them but nothing you do increases margin, you are simply there to make sure no one blows shit up and provide data when needed.

 
marcellus_wallace:
pacman007:
GoodBread:
So you're saying you'd rather not become a trader?

I'm saying that I hadn't considered it before. I was always focused on eventually getting to the business development side of things. My question is: what type of exit opps would I have after this type of role?

I just have found out that our Commercial organization has its own business development side....where we decide whether or not to invest in pipelines, acquire plants, terminals, vessels etc...this seems very interesting now.

What type of financials firms look to hire people who acquire this type of background?

BD/Origination is a lot more complicated than that. It's the closest to investment banking at a VP/MD level you could get in this business.

None, BD is focused on physical assets and physical market strategies. You are of no value to a financial firm, unless they have a physical arm or business.

Based on your questions seems you are still bit to confused or "green" to the industry what exactly marketing firms do to make $$$, may want to give it 6months in this role then start asking these questions.

Oh yah, one last thing. Just to be clear you are not in "commercial" you are not doing work aligned with the risk appetite of commercial nor apart of the commercial bonus pool. So really the first "exit opp" you should look for is to clearly get into a commercial role. Think of it this way you are on the floor near the traders and working with them but nothing you do increases margin, you are simply there to make sure no one blows shit up and provide data when needed.

Thanks for the feedback. I do understand that I am not in commerical but I will work very closely with our traders. I will also understand how supply & trading activities impact the bottom line. Many traders on our floor have come from these same F&PA roles so I do know that it is very possible to move to commercial. I'm not dead-set on becoming a trader but I definitely want move into the market/research roles that we have and from what I know so far, this is very much possible.

I sit right next to a market analyst on the floor and my traders are a few desks over so I know I can start networking immediately and start soaking up knowledge. There is definitely a lot to learn so I just gotta role up my sleeves and get to it...

 

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