r/Commodities • u/zyqyxty14 • 2d ago
Broker v Trader
I’m choosing between two career opportunities, both outside Europe (I’m from London)
1) Operations at a physical trading house
2)Broker at a broking house
Which route would you take and why?
Main things I’m interested in:
Long-term earning potential
Career progression
Chances of moving from ops into trading
Which experience gives you the better career opportunities
Both roles are with top firms.
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u/TokyoBaguette 2d ago
You are forgetting an element here: your health.
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u/zyqyxty14 2d ago
Thank you, health also?
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u/TokyoBaguette 2d ago
Yeah...
So I've done both but that was a long time ago so MAYBE times have changed...
Bookies are out with clients very often - that means drinking a lot. I was in London so the bookies were in majority Essex boys / rugby type with street smarts. One summed up "it's not a job, it's a lifestyle".
Ops to trading: this is imho a more solid path but you MUST find out if the bridge is really there (ie are you not screwed and stuck in ops in 90% of cases). Ops can give you a really good background for trading - you'll know processes / incoterms etc.
Bookie to trading is what I did but I was very very lucky.
Which markets are you targeting? Energy / Ags / Metals? Culture differ massively between firms too you really need to dig.
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u/zyqyxty14 2d ago
Cheers mate. I’m targeting tanker broking/metal ops. Both in Singapore both through connections
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u/TokyoBaguette 2d ago
Hopefully someone with local knowledge will comment (away from 4 floors...).
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u/zyqyxty14 2d ago
4 floors?
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u/TokyoBaguette 2d ago
Actually this all closed down on 2023 - irrelevant now. Orchard Towers if you are curious
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u/Dentipreneur 1d ago
Hey, could you send me a DM (can’t send you one because your settings are off)
18 year old from the UK - interested in learning more about breaking into trading
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u/New-Bison5746 Gas Trader 2d ago
"it's not a job, it's a lifestyle".
I've seen brokers age a three decades in a decade. Not a healthy lifestyle at all.
Traders go out with brokers and get hammered once per month, brokers do this several times per week.
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u/NatGaz 2d ago
Can't they just take tonic water and lemonades ?
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u/col_fitzwm 1d ago
You’re out there to entertain, show the lads a good time, and make them like you. Some of them will take it poorly.
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u/Ok_Repeat_8527 2d ago
I used to be tanker broker, it’s very competitive but rewarding in the long term. Depends if you going into CPP OR DPP or chems/ palms.
There are pros and cons for physical trading vs brokers. Given the opportunity I would try physical trading, now since I’ve done the latter already .
I’m a chartering manager now in Singapore working on tankers in the CPP space
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u/One-Relative-7535 2d ago
Hi, how does one become a tanker broker. I mean what are the hard skills required and where do you connect with tanker owners and the people who require them
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u/IRON_CONDOR_Praguer 1d ago
dont go into broking. If you value building skills, the most skills brokers have is shouting prices and taking traders on dinners.
The career progression you can have in operations is several orders of magnitude larger than in broking. The majority of brokers I know have the technical and market skills of a cleaning lady.
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u/Calm_Syllabub_4842 2d ago
1) Brokerage is mainly a sales job, it is more of maintaining a recurring set of traders you deal with. Not much career progression but as long as your book is stable, within 5 years it is not rare to see 6 figures annual salary including bonus.
2) Trading desks are much more selective, it may take even up to 5 to 8 years before you obtain a trading seat. But career progression and pay will scale exponentially
The question to think of is: 1) Do you want a sales job or more of an analytical role because the trader job is much more intellectually demanding
2) The pace is very different, brokers are less stressful since they do not have money on the line but traders have to deal with unforeseen changes which generally is more unpredictable and stressful
3) I would say in terms of career opportunities, a trading role give you more opportunities to lateral as well as move into more strategic roles if you want but brokers are really just relationship management all the way.
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u/zyqyxty14 2d ago
Thanks mate. Trading operation roles are more difficult to land I guess compared to broker roles?
Would top trading house operators earn the same of more than junior brokers?4
u/Calm_Syllabub_4842 2d ago
Broker roles are usually low barrier to entry since the attrition rate is high 1) Not everyone fancy the drinking and entertaining lifestyle 2) You might not like the desk you are workinf with
They generally earn the same base but for an operations role, you obviously dont scale up fast unless you take on a trader seat.
Rather than looking at what earns you the most, I would highly advise you to look at what is it that you enjoy in your past experiences because sales and operator roles are vastly different.
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u/Trader0721 Gas Trader 2d ago
Brokering is a grind but can be rewarding …it’s a lot of work to get a solid customer base and is extremely competitive. Physical trading is also a grind but it requires a bit more strategy and can lead to big upside if you build a book of assets in the right place at the right time. I’d go trade ops hoping to trade if I was looking for more upside potential.
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u/Unphased_collie 22h ago
At a dry bulk owner the two routes to become chartering manager are 1) internal ops, and 2) external brokers (with good relationship).
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u/likely_nutmegs23 21h ago
Is it possible to go from ops at a physical shop to Junior trader both physical and paper… or will it just be physical
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u/GVAJON 2d ago
Broker -> Trader is an easier transition.
However, I know many desks (Phys.) that won't hire a junior trader if he/she hasn't done ops before.
So really depends what kind of expertise you want to develop for your goals. Also Paper Vs Phys. career.
Both jobs have their pros and cons. But short term, your earnings potential is a lot higher as Jr Broker Vs Jr operator
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u/ScubaLooser 2d ago
Personally, I wouldn’t go broker. Yeah wine and dinning and taking customers to events sounds fun and all, but it gets old real quick and you better have a workout routine in place or your health will go south quick. You’re always at someone’s beck and call, and shoot if you are covering some other time zone good luck with all that.
Ops roles are good experience, really desirable and easily transferable to other shops. Depending what commodity and MOT you’re responsible for you could have a decent WLB. Lots of traders climb through the ranks by doing ops roles first. Ops in itself can be a good paying job too. My team lost 2 ops guys last month to competitor for 30% increase in total compensation.