If you’ve ever dreamed of ditching your day job for a career as a commodities trader, here’s a word of wisdom.
Don’t.
Trading in commodities isn’t for amateurs. It requires intensive study and dedication. However, if you’d like to keep your day job and trade on the side, perhaps eventually working your way up to full-time trading, the words of wisdom we have for you are a little less harsh.
Working as a gold trader typically involves betting on the price of gold at specified dates in the futures market of the direct selling of physical gold in markets. If you’re going into the gold futures trading market, you’ll likely work in a big trading room or commodity exchange in a major city like New York or Chicago.
The lifeblood of the trading game is information and assessing investor mood. You’ll need good networking skills to form a pool of colleagues and clients that you can frequently consult to assess these factors. Most of your contacts will be done via phone or e-mail, so brushing up on writing and communication skills are a must
Knowing the fundamentals of the gold market is a must, whether you’re a commodity broker or just someone selling gold coins on eBay. Gold traders need to know how to recognize trends and understand how financial market and world events will affect their bottom line.
Commodity broker firms divide their staffs into folks who work the floor and those who work the desk. Floor traders make deals by dealing face-to-face with other brokers. The traders will make an offer price and specify how much of a commodity they want to buy via oral communication or hand signals. (Learning these hand signals is very important, as a wrong signal can lead to big money losses). Lately much of the floor trading work has migrated to computers, but a strong face-to-face component of trading remains and likely will into the near future.
Gold trading is an energetic, dynamic career field with swiftly changing circumstances. Traders must be confident, extroverted and self-starting to succeed. As the famous saying goes, “Money never sleeps,” and traders should be aware that what’s happening in Hong Kong while they’re asleep can have a big impact on what’s going on at the office the next day. The pressure and stress in these jobs is great, and many traders wash out by age 30. But for those who stay in the game, gold trading is a challenging and rewarding field, both monetarily and from an emotional standpoint, as successfully making a winning deal is extremely gratifying.
Disclosure: “The Gold Gazette, or any of its subsidiaries, employees, or affiliates, does not accept any liability for any investment decisions made on the basis of this information. This web site does not constitute financial advice and should not be taken as such. The The Gold Gazette, or any of its subsidiaries, employees, or affiliates urges you to obtain professional advice before proceeding with any investment, trade, or financial decision.”
When ever i see the word ‘betting’ in an article about trading it instantly discredits the author. Betting is placing a wager on an event with an uncertain outcome.
Trading is using experience, knowledge and a PLAN to forecast possible market direction and then with the use of risk management placing PROFITABLE trades.
you may have said this later in your post however i didn’t read it because you threw away your credibility in the first paragraph.