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August 13, 2008


Will a Top Commodity Trader Soon Be Worth One Fifth His 2008 Salary?

Another heavily-read article from June 2006 that someone fortunately copied and pasted into a message forum: What’s a Top Commodity Trader Worth? Quintuple 2000 Salaries:

“Hiring is extremely difficult because this has been a very small community … Twenty years of poor returns in commodity markets has led to a thin talent pool of traders … top commodity traders are making five times more than [what they made] in 2000 … Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley received more than half the estimated $7 billion in revenue that global banks got from commodities last year.”

Notable at the time for sentiment reasons, but you can’t be too clever when trying to pick a turn in the market. The bull run in commodities remained strong for years after that article was printed (and may very well still be intact).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 5:07 pm (utc+8) and is filed under Energies, Metals, Agriculture.

2 Responses to “Will a Top Commodity Trader Soon Be Worth One Fifth His 2008 Salary?”

  1. Lawrence Chiu said:
    August 15th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

    The commodity half of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens’s BP Capital hedge fund lost 35 percent of its value in July, the New York Post said, citing sources. The fund is believed to be down about 10 percent for the year, the paper said.

    http://lcmarket.blogspot.com/2008/08/reuters-pickens-hedge-fund-loses-value.html

  2. JL said:
    August 16th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    More on Pickens’ portfolio:

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