Trading in commodities, a plea from the coalface

schmerg

schmerg
OT perhaps, but reading about Trading in newletter #20, it struck me that while I'm working in real life commodities trading at the moment (oil, metals, freight, ores, concentrates etc - not as a trader but building IT systems) I hope Elite isn't going to be too realistic in this respect.

Profits to be made, sure, but if there's broker reconciliations to manage, competing assay results to resolve penalty clauses for trace elements, problems with cleanup after transporting high sulphur fuels, free day count calculations on load & unload, temperature corrections on volume measurements, and a million and one back office tasks, if I have to run mark-to-market risk figures on my positions, if I have to allow for business day conventions across star systems, IF I SEE EXCEL IN THERE....

Well... given my success with the Beta so far, automating trading flows might be my only chance of advancing in the game... but I'll be weeping into my joystick's gimbal if I find myself staring out at the stars from behind an office desk...

"I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... Excel queries bringing a 32-CPU Oracle cluster to meltdown. I watched trivial formatting issues wipe out positions overnight. All these bugs... will repeat forever... like tears in rain"​

:)

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T
 

schmerg

schmerg
adam said:
Yikes. Do you like your job?
Click to expand...

I do, but I want to explore the galaxy.

I don't want automated messages telling me the transaction log is full & can I fix it while I'm trying to fight off pirates - I can get paid for doing that :)

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T
 

Yaffle

Volunteer Moderator
Yaffle
I think forcing commanders to deal in physical commodities and not derivatives should stop all that.

If there is to be a meta-market for derivatives done by players with no life, then that's up to them.
 

Riedquat

Riedquat
gosh no, although I hope to see detailed market data (like the concept picture we saw in one of the earlier newsletters), at the end of the day I would just like to be able to click on a 'purchase' button.

I'm sure they wont deviate from that too much, apart from the dealers in stations which sounds interesting.
 

schmerg

schmerg
Yaffle said:
I think forcing commanders to deal in physical commodities and not derivatives should stop all that.

If there is to be a meta-market for derivatives done by players with no life, then that's up to them.
Click to expand...

There was only one country that didn't sell their oil on the futures market (so you can plan your economy based on knowing your actual income) and it brought them so close to financial ruin that it nearly started yet another Middle East war, and this one would have been a biggie.

In all seriousness, I take it we'll be operating more like hauliers for trading houses (Space Guild for House Atreides etc) and/or doing a bit of boot-sale/eBay/Del-Boy style trading spotting small arbitrage opportunities. At least, when we're not hijacking the odd supertanker or riding shotgun on the same...
 
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