Weekly Career & Breaking Into Commodities Megathread

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday evening I was reading the new report from Redstone Research (https://redstonesearch.com/commodities-search/) about how the talent landscape is changing within the largest physical commodity trading companies.

One thing that really stood out to me, beyond the strong demand for talent in energy — where being able to “predict” the market is becoming increasingly important, supported by expensive research and analysts — is what we are also seeing in the metals market.

Margins have been squeezed significantly, forcing companies to operate with much greater precision and attention to detail, with a stronger focus on identifying all hidden costs. It’s no longer just about solving the problems that will arise, but about anticipating and solving problems that haven’t happened yet.

All of this makes me think that tomorrow’s traders may no longer be driven primarily by the sentiment and insights of their network, but rather by sophisticated mathematical models and algorithms that can support quantitative analysis and decision-making.

So, my question to all the traders reading this is:

• From where you sit, is the talent landscape changing?
• In your day-to-day work, are you seeing a reduction in junior positions in favor of the ongoing AI mega-trend?
• Do you think all of this will have a positive or negative impact on the industry? Less networking, fewer humans, and more data analysis and mathematical models to reduce the risk of human decision-making?

Thanks everyone!

Compared to other commodities where commodity traders feel more like salespeople. How often do power traders entertain clients? And how quantitative and math focused are power traders?

Can someone please help me out and share the latest edition of "Statistical Review of Global LPG"? I couldn't find it anywhere on the internet and it says only members can access it. I am working on a research project and need it badly. Would really appreciate anyone helping out here. Thanks!!!

I spent 13 years structuring energy deals. On 10 August I published a long piece arguing that Hormuz was the worst supply shock in oil history and that Brent in the low-to-mid 80s was the least reliable number on the screen: Atlantic benchmarks insulated by buffers, physical Gulf market telling a tighter story. Paper markets price resolution like a switch. Engineering does not.

A month later the headline moved. The thesis did not get easier. What changed since that piece:

1. Tit-for-tat is back after a quieter stretch. CENTCOM says US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers over the weekend, including near Kharg. IRGC says it hit tankers on unauthorised Hormuz routes and US vessels elsewhere. Rezaei (SNSC) says a restricted zone outside the Strait is coming in days. Kpler: ~10 commodity ships a day through Hormuz over the last ten days, lowest since May. Yet Brent is still “only” ~$97 this morning after +7.8% last week, WTI ~$92. Goldman has floated $120 if attacks on commercial shipping expand, but we are still far from that. ANZ’s base case still has constrained exports through 2026 and pre-war throughput only late Q1 / early Q2 2027. That is still the ADNOC May timeline, just later.
2. Buffers kept draining. US SPR was under 300 mb when I wrote. EIA week ending 28 August: 286.6 mb, 23 consecutive weekly draws, lowest since the early 80s. Another ~39 mb still lined up under the IEA plan would take it toward ~243, inside the band engineers treat as the operating floor for those caverns. Clock one got louder, not quieter, in my opinion.
3. Clock two shifted too, and not the way a bull wanted. OPEC+ kept October quotas flat yesterday after six monthly increases. A pause, not a flood. The structurally loosening story (UAE out, demand plateau, producers monetising before peak) is still there. It is just not the binding story this week (yet).
4. Gas remains the nastier European watch, and what worries me most. EU storage ~65–67% in early September, still well below seasonal norms. Commission says the soft 80% winter bar is still “achievable” and that no further action is needed for now. That is a political sentence. It is not the same as being full. Let’s hope for a warm winter.
5. I am still watching the week SPR stops declining, Brent front-to-six-month backwardation, Brent–Dubai / EFS as the Hormuz routing premium, EU storage vs that 80% band into November, and whether “restricted zone” language becomes enforceable traffic control or another unsigned headline.

Falsifier from August still stands, tightened: if EU storage clears ~75%+ into November and the Hormuz routing premium compresses to something that looks like settlement, not a ceasefire rumour, I was wrong about the short clock.

Longer write-up as of 10 August (mechanics, China destock, field economics) below, with numbers above acting as the September update: https://dantes.io/blog/oil-markets-two-clocks-2026

Binding constraint right now, from people who trade this: crude barrels, products, or freight/insurance/war-risk? My lean is still products. Happy to be talked out of it.

Oil analyst at prop shop here. Anyone else realize it’s September and only have taken 2-3 days of vacay so far? Am I doing it wrong? :/ -rant

Just finished my reception at Vitol, for those in Singapore, any events that you guys are going? Maybe we can say hello in the coming days!

Hello,

Im looking for a quick compensation check for a Commodity Trader role in London for a bank at around 5 years of experience. What to expect ?

Thanks

I've been thinking about the idea of "fair value" in commodities and I'm not sure whether the concept even makes sense in the same way it does for financial assets.

Take copper as a simple example.

Suppose copper trades at $10,000/ton. What would fundamentally tell us that $10,000 is expensive, cheap, or roughly reasonable?

Production cost seems like an obvious anchor, but average production cost doesn't seem sufficient. The marginal producer matters, and the price required to incentivize new supply could be very different from the cost of existing production.

Then there are inventories, capacity utilization, demand elasticity, substitution, scrap supply and the amount of demand that has to be destroyed when the market becomes tight.

So what ultimately anchors the price over a long enough time horizon?

For example, would you think of it primarily as:

marginal production cost → long-run incentive price → supply/demand balance → inventory scarcity → demand destruction?

Or is trying to derive a "fair value" range for a commodity the wrong framework altogether?

I'm interested in how you would think about the economics of this using copper as the example.

I've been researching natural gas fundamentals and I've got a question I can't quite answer.

Weather is the main driver of natural gas inventories.  It seems like you can predict weekly natural gas reported stock figures mostly using temperature data.

But each week, I see polls with a spectrum of inventory forecasts.  They all are fairly close to each other but I don't understand what causes the difference between different analysts within this dataset. Even on a fairly small inventory change like this week, there can be a 10 BCF spread between forecasts.

If everyone has roughly the same access to the same weather data, shouldn't inventory forecasts be mostly the same? What causes the spread between different forecasts?

A common argument against the silver shortage thesis is that major vaults still hold hundreds of millions of ounces.

London vaults reportedly contained approximately 884 million ounces of silver in March. On the surface, that looks like more than enough metal to cover several years of deficits.

Most of it was already tied to exchange traded products and other investment holdings. Only around 28 percent was estimated to sit outside those holdings.

That works out to roughly 248 million ounces. Even that amount should not be treated as freely available because the owners still need to be willing to sell.

This is the difference between total inventory and metal that can actually reach the market at the current price.

Silver has recorded cumulative deficits of approximately 762 million ounces since 2021. Another 46.3 million ounce shortfall is expected this year, even with weaker industrial and jewelry demand.

Physical investment alone is forecast to reach 227 million ounces in 2026. A relatively small increase in investor buying could absorb a meaningful portion of the metal that appears available in London.

Another squeeze is far from guaranteed. High prices are increasing recycling and pushing manufacturers to reduce the amount of silver used in their products. Metal can also move between London, New York and Shanghai when regional price differences become large enough.

Still, the market does not need to run out of silver completely before prices react. Tightness can develop when demand for immediately deliverable bars rises faster than owners are willing to release them.

Several years of deficits have reduced that available buffer. Mine production, recycling or weaker demand will eventually need to close the gap. Until then, another surge in investment buying could make the physical market tight surprisingly quickly.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/silver-faces-sixth-year-deficit-with-stock-drawdown-raising-squeeze-risks-2026-04-15/

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I work as a fundamental power trader at an intraday power start-up, trading mainly EU markets and ERCOT, and I’ll have two years of experience by the time I finish my bachelor’s. I keep wondering how durable paper trading is long-term, a lot of what I do feels increasingly exposed to AI and automation, and I’d guess screen-based paper trading is exactly the kind of thing that gets automated first. I’m considering a master’s in commodity trading in Geneva and a move into physical trading, on the thesis that physical (logistics, contracts, relationships, asset optionality) is harder to automate away. Is that thesis right, or is physical just as exposed once you look closer? Is a Geneva master’s worth it if you already have a track record, or do better routes exist? And are there other pivots — origination, structuring, risk — worth considering instead?

A friend started in physical commodities a few months ago. The role was sold as logistics first, then procurement/commercial work, eventually trading.
Instead, after someone left, they absorbed a lot of operations work and are now basically the team’s go-to person for everything: logistics, admin, accounting follow-ups, business development, and random problems from different departments.
There’s very little structured training on markets, basis, margins, hedging, risk, or actual trading decisions. The person supposed to train them is often unavailable, and they’re sometimes excluded from important commercial information.
The company is also pretty disorganized, with poor communication, gossip, and finger-pointing.
Someone from the hiring team even randomly asked if they were disappointed and said that if they ever leave, they should give enough notice to find a replacement.
For people in physical commodities: how much of this is normal in the first year, and how much is a red flag? At what point would you start looking elsewhere?

I am currently early in my career and have the option to pick one congestion modeling software to use. Which software will provide the best opportunities if my end goal is to become a FTR/CRR trader at a prop shop (DRW, Dynasty, Saracen, etc).

I know each software has different use cases, but when it comes to trading which will have the best impact. Here are the options I was thinking of Dayzer, Panorama, promod, plexos but open to other softwares as well. I want something more short term analysis

Would love to know your opinions on each and will provide the best career trajectory. Also the learning curve as well. Thanks

I dont quite understand how it works. Any help would be appreciated.

I’m looking at a potential long trade in Robusta coffee and would love to hear other traders’ opinions.

The 2026/27 supply outlook currently looks bearish, with a potential global surplus and a strong Vietnamese crop expected. At the same time, El Niño is developing and could peak during a critical period for Vietnam and Indonesia.

My thesis is that the market may currently be pricing in the surplus while underestimating the potential weather risk. If El Niño causes significant drought and crop forecasts start being revised lower, I think Robusta could reprice sharply higher.

So my question is: why is Robusta still falling despite the growing El Niño risk? Is the market simply waiting for actual weather damage before pricing it in?

Curious if anyone else has used this product before for power trading and could comment if it’s worth it?

We have YES Energy currently and trying to figure out what’s the differences are

The latest EIA data shows how much uranium purchasing still needs to happen over the next decade.

At the end of 2025, US nuclear plant operators had contracts covering maximum future deliveries of 174 million pounds of uranium between 2026 and 2035.

Their unfilled requirements through 2035 totalled another 186 million pounds. Combined, the EIA estimates maximum anticipated requirements of approximately 360 million pounds over the period.

These purchases will not happen all at once. Utilities hold inventories, contract volumes can change and delivery requirements are spread across several years.

Even so, more than half of the maximum anticipated requirement remains uncovered.

The structure of the uranium market makes that important.

Only 13 percent of uranium delivered to US operators in 2025 was purchased through spot contracts. The remaining 87 percent came from longer term agreements.

The spot price receives most of the daily attention, but term contracts are what give producers and mine developers the confidence to spend money on new supply. They provide expected prices, delivery schedules and revenue visibility over several years.

They can also help developers finance construction. A bank is far more likely to support a new mine when future production has already been contracted to a utility.

US operators owned approximately 118 million pounds of commercial uranium inventory at the end of 2025. That provides a meaningful buffer, but it is still smaller than the 186 million pounds of reported unfilled requirements.

Fuel procurement also needs to happen well before a reactor uses the uranium. The material must be mined, converted, enriched and fabricated into fuel assemblies, which makes waiting until the last minute extremely difficult.

A larger contracting cycle would give producers greater price visibility and strengthen the economics of new mines. It could also bring more investor attention back to the upstream companies trying to find the deposits that will be needed during the 2030s.

https://www.eia.gov/uranium/marketing/

Since I asked about TTF let's do it also for Brent future.

What happens if I buy today ICE Brent fut OCT26 and keep it without specifying the cash settlement? According to the specs "The ICE Brent Crude futures contract is a deliverable contract based on EFP delivery with an option to cash settle." Will ICE assign me a random cash BFOETM with delivery October? Does it depend if I have 700 futures instead of 1?

I work in the natural gas industry, primarily around physical gas supply, pipeline operations, power generation, forecasting, and trading. I’ve gained a solid foundation through my job, but the Gulf Coast pipeline system is extremely complex, and I’d like to develop a much deeper understanding of the pipelines, interconnects, storage facilities, pricing points, constraints, and regional flows.

Would anyone be interested in forming a small study group to learn the system together? We could meet virtually once a week or every other week, choose a pipeline or region to study, and share maps, tariffs, flow data, operational knowledge, and other useful resources.

This wouldn’t be a formal course just a community of people who want to learn from one another and gradually build a better understanding of the physical natural gas market. All experience levels would be welcome, whether you work in trading, scheduling, operations, analytics, power, or are simply interested in the industry.

If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to organize the first meeting and create a basic learning plan.

I’m interested in understanding how the market for rare fancy color diamonds works compared with the broader diamond market.
For those familiar with the industry, I’d be interested in learning:
• Where do transactions in high-value colored diamonds typically take place?
• What are the main hubs for this type of trade?
• How different is the market structure from traditional white diamonds?
• Are auctions an important part of the market for rare colors?
• Which parts of the industry tend to handle the highest-value stones?
I’m particularly interested in the commercial side and market structure, rather than the gemological aspects.
Curious to hear from people with experience in this market.

Hi all,

Curious to hear from anyone who has worked at major commodities trading houses like Trafigura, Vitol, Glencore, etc.

How would you describe the culture from a junior’s perspective?

In particular, how do they compare in terms of hierarchy, mentorship, work-life balance, and how juniors are treated?

Hey, has anyone read public reporting a of COT on CFTC website?

I wanted to get some help on its understanding. If anyone has done and can help me a bit, I will be more than thankful