The American commodities house growing in Singapore

efinancialcareers.com:

If you are (or you work with) a commodities trader in Singapore, you might want to consider joining a commodities trading house instead of a bank.

It makes sense; banks pay their traders notably worse than many, many other employers do. Hedge funds are a popular next step, but they’re not the only ones. There are also commodities trading houses, such as Connecticut-based Freepoint Commodities. Freepoint has an office in Singapore. And it’s been hiring.

Most recently, it added Qiaoning Li. Li spent eight years with Goldman Sachs and was an executive director before leaving the firm, trading bulk and agricultural commodities in Singapore. She'll be trading undefined commodities at Freepoint in Singapore.

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Freepoint’s Asian presence is headed by Jeffrey Wang, who joined the firm six months ago. He also came from Goldman, where he worked for ten years, including five as a managing director. He was at Morgan Stanley for six years before that.

Li and Wang aren’t the only new faces at Freepoint in Singapore in the last year. The trading house has added a number of other people to its office, including Grace Chew, a crude oil trader and ten-year veteran of Shell (and UBS). Also joined was Arjun Mishra, former head of Asian oil analysis for Trafigura, who became Freepoint’s head of analytics back in June.

Commodities traders are some of the best places to be in finance. Traders can earn millions, although the jobs aren’t quite as glamorous or sought-after as hedge funders. Trafigura specifically paid its 1200 employee-owners an average of $2.5m after 2022. It should be no surprise that banks are hemorrhaging traders to them.

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