Junior Oil Trader @ 33?

Hi guys,
I've been an equities sales trader for the last 5 years in Athens Greece with a total work exp of 8 years, plus 1.5 years of military service. I've graduated from Cass Business School in London in 2002 with a BSc in finance and an MSc in Shipping, Trade & Finance.
I have decided that i want to make a career switch into commodities trading.

What do you think are the chances of getting accepted at 12 month junior physical trading programme like the one that Trafigura runs every year, at the age of 33-34?
In theory the programm targets candidates with 2-3 years of trading exp.
An acquaintance of mine within the firm contacted HR to discuss my CV with them and he said "they encouraged me to apply"...but i know they're not supposed to age discreminate. I was hoping for your feedback.
(btw i don't mind being a trainee or assuming a junior position)

P.S appologies for the long post, new here

 
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/company/goldman-sachs><abbr title=Goldman Sachs&#10;>GS</abbr></a></span>:
BVMadden:
sarmand777:
trader for the last 5 years in Athens Greece

Ouch

Not necessarily. If he were long CDS's on Greece 5 years ago , he'd have made a killing!

The irony with the username.

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 

Probably you're both right. It did hurt although i wasn't trading the Greek market, but with trouble often come opportunities as well. I did not go long greek CDSs but i advised clients to do so very early (late 2010) with the Italian ones.

blue horse shoe loves anacott steel
 
Best Response

Thanks for your reply. My view is that commodities will continue to provide better trading opportunities than equities overall in the coming years either in energy (reserves, geopolitical developements) or grains (demographics), even if markets move south again. Moreover, i believe that getting involved in the pyisical side of it will be a more attractive role as it is real business, rather than just a mere guessing game in front of my Bloomberg screens. My commodities trading experience is limited to paper trades on behalf of clients. Apart from outright bets on crude nat gas etc I did quite a few contracts and some hefty profits on the Brent-WTI spread last year. But that's it. My real question was wether starting at 33-34 can be an obstacle, or joining a training programme that asks for 2-3 experience when you carry 8 is something they can be flexible with.

blue horse shoe loves anacott steel
 
sarmand777:
Thanks for your reply. My view is that commodities will continue to provide better trading opportunities than equities overall in the coming years either in energy (reserves, geopolitical developements) or grains (demographics), even if markets move south again. Moreover, i believe that getting involved in the pyisical side of it will be a more attractive role as it is real business, rather than just a mere guessing game in front of my Bloomberg screens. My commodities trading experience is limited to paper trades on behalf of clients. Apart from outright bets on crude nat gas etc I did quite a few contracts and some hefty profits on the Brent-WTI spread last year. But that's it. My real question was wether starting at 33-34 can be an obstacle, or joining a training programme that asks for 2-3 experience when you carry 8 is something they can be flexible with.

they aren't teaching you to trade in those 3 years, theyre teaching you the physical business. it is not fun work and it sucks. once you know that they start teaching you to trade physical.

 

I don't think the age is a big deal. Your experience and education are probably more of an issue. If I saw your resume I'd be thinking about:

  1. Why does this guy want to take a step down in prestige and comp
  2. Fairly impressive education / experience to be doing the grunt work of the trainee programs
  3. A lot of these programs (I'm not intimately familiar with Trafigura) are about learning how the products actually work in real life, how to use the deal entry system, aspects of credit, how to run a book in excel (if the place has a shitty deal entry system like most do). Unfortunately you probably already know all that. I think I could take a competent equity guy and teach him the mechanics of commodities deal flow in a week.
  4. There will obviously be some exposure to the physical oil side of the business; but in a trainee program a lot of that is going to be "if you sell oil to someone in Brazil you'll need to charter a boat". With a MSc in Shipping I'd expect you've got that covered.
  5. You say you don't mind a junior position but what happens when you get dealt the really lousy jobs... a bunch of data entry, getting lunch etc.

Why not try and get in the door as as a client facing guy? Sounds like you've got clients now; why not apply to the super majors and merchants in their financial products, marketing or origination areas? Once in the door you can either work a move internally, or do that for a year or two and use your combined experience to at least start as a junior trader somewhere.

Having said all that if you think that the junior program is the way to go be aware that (in North America at least) there are a fair number of people in those programs that are graduating from their Bachelors degree in their late 20's due to attempting a career in something else they excelled at. A very common one is someone that went semi-pro in some kind of sport and played AAA baseball or something.

Edit: just responded to a 4 year old question. Leaving answer in case the guy who brought the thread back to life cares.

 

Omnis non accusamus non. Tempore officia commodi possimus. Fugit odit temporibus esse blanditiis. Voluptatem dolores ullam quia porro.

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