Well, if you are trading at an upper tier commodities desk - you are trading OTC products and physical bilateral; and NO independent trader has the bonafides and capital to play in those arenas.
Chicago is by far not competitive regarding physical commodies trading anymore. Real volume is agreed upon over the phone or chat in Geneva, Paris, and China.
GRULSTMRNN, What about Brazil, India and Thailand...top producers and exporters of Sugar ? Some of the top firms have offices in these countries. Note: My memory is outdated from 20 - 30 years ago. Maybe it wouldn't hurt if the thread starter speaks other languages from any of these countries just in case relocation is ok. wrbtrader
If someone actually did want to take a "market" class in Chicago pretty much every MBA program has class, but IIT in the West Loop actually has an entire program preparing new trades and the exchanges and the money management and trading community supply both $$ and lecturers and guest lecturers. There are numerous programs around the country(and outside). The cool thing about the IIT class is it where many of the firm recruiters start searching the program for local desks. Booth, Kellogg, and Kellstadt are also great incubators.
Master of Science in Finance The Stuart School of Business in Chicago is home to one of the nation’s premier Master of Science in Finance programs. The program builds on a solid foundation in financial mathematics, statistics, and modeling, and offers a range of elective concentrations to prepare students for specialized careers in the financial services industry. Students at Stuart benefit from Chicago’s status as a leading financial center. Courses are taught by industry experts who bring their career knowledge and understanding of today’s marketplace directly to the classroom. Partnerships with alumni and other professionals in the industry give students numerous opportunities to work on real-world projects and gain valuable professional experience. Financial competitions, including the annual CFA Institute Research Challenge, give Stuart students the chance to showcase their skills at an international level. Almost everyone from our shop has guest lectured.
"the cme used have lectures and they counted for credits also." Yeah - you used to get an entire day with Shelly Natenberg for $10 bucks. The only reason they charged was to keep the "riff-raff" out. The Cboe and the CME both continue to run schools.
Brazil is another big one indeed. But I was referring to trading houses, not producers. There is to my knowledge not a single African based top commodities trading house, most African business is handled out of Geneva, Paris, and London, in that order.
I get the feel that traditional finance programs and MBAs are dropping like a stone in terms of popularity among recruiters in corporate finance. MBAs experienced a huge drop in demand from Wall Street. I have always said that an MBA to the financial services industry is as useful as letting a stripper work the car wash. Most innovative MS finance programs model their curriculum after the Carnegie Mellon MSCF, one of the pioneers in this space. I would be surprised if any bank for any trading position today hired anyone without at least rudimentary coding skills, training in advanced probabilities and statistics, and a very solid calculus background. Only quant finance programs can satisfy such demand, hence that's why every top school nowadays offers one such program.
I agree 100%. These days an MS with a strong statistical modeling and programming emphasis will get you MUCH further. But since the OP has commercial Sugar trading experience and he wants to stay in that space I think graduate school may not be a priority.