Commodity Analyst

If you were able to predict the future, you’d be a whiz at the stock market. You’d know which trends to avoid, and when something was about to become hot and expensive. You’d know just when to buy raw materials, and when you should wait one more day. People would flock to your door for advice.

But no one can truly predict the future. A Commodity Analyst, however, does try. Commodity Analysts make accurate forecasts of what the market will do, especially if they’d like to keep their jobs.

The Commodity Market, in Wall Street terms, is simply an exchange of raw materials. Items traded include everything from grains, pork, and fruit, to oil and electricity. Some companies will require you — a Commodity Analyst — to watch each and every item traded, while others will ask that you focus on one specific item, such as metal or soybeans.

You have an expert’s eye for the market. You know when prices are rising, and when they are expected to fall. To keep abreast of financial trends, you’ll be a bit of a news junkie, reading online reports, newspaper accounts, and Wall Street analyses.

You distill everything you learn into reports of your own, complete with a summation, a prediction, and a recommendation. At times, you’ll be writing for other Wall Street executives, so your language can be a bit jargon-filled. In other offices, you write reports aimed at investors, containing complex market ideas in terms they can understand.