Aluminium Trading
Aluminium is a very important element that can be found everywhere at home and in everyday life. It used to produce air conditioners, bikes, building structures, cans, cars, kitchen foil, planes, ships, solar panel, trains etc. Given the variety of usage for aluminium in different industries, the global aluminium trading industry plays an essential part within metals and commodities in general.
The aluminium industry is highly competitive which makes it essential to find the right candidates according to the needs of each of our clients. Redstone Commodity Search are working with Trading Houses, Producers, Majors, Merchants, Hedge Funds, Investment Banks and Brokerages and offer search solutions for primarily middle and front office positions.
We have a strong network with aluminium candidates worldwide, including aluminium traders, aluminium sales and account managers, aluminium analysts, aluminium operations and logistics managers as well as aluminium engineering specialists. All candidates are screened and interviewed for every position to ensure their suitability and relevance to our clients’ requirements.
Our metals team has a deep understanding of the aluminium industry and has completed assignments across the globe; Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe, USA and LATAM.
Recent hires our metals team has been responsible for include:
- Head of Aluminium Trading, UK
- Aluminium Sales Manager, Europe
- Aluminium Marketing Director, Switzerland
- Aluminium Proprietary Trader, New York
- Aluminium LME Trader, Singapore
- Aluminium Risk Manager, Switzerland
- Head of Aluminium Research, UK
What is Aluminium?
Aluminium (American spelling: aluminum) is a very flexible, light-weight, and strong metal which can be counted to the base metals or non-ferrous metals. As a physical commodity, aluminium is traded as raw material, unfinished, semi-finished or finished product and as scrap metal.
Aluminium is obtained from grinding raw material bauxite to extract and refine the contained aluminium oxide (alumina) which is further processed into liquid aluminium (molten aluminium) by adding carbon and electricity. The molten aluminium is casted into different shapes and can be further rolled, extruded or re-melted. In general, there are three types of aluminium applications:
- Castings
- Extrusions
- (Hot- and cold-) rolled products
Casting products include logs, billets (extrusion ingots), slabs for rolling (sheet ingots), high purity ingots, T-ingots (T-bars), wire rods, and primary foundry alloys. Foundry alloys are produced by adding additional metals to the molten aluminium which changes the strength and tensile strength of the product. Commonly, castings are used in the automotive, aviation, buildings and construction, cable, electrical, and packaging industries.
While castings can be also referred to as upstream aluminium products, extrusions and rolled aluminium applications are more downstream in the production line. Semi-finished extrusion products include bars, profiles, and tubes and they are produced for the automotive, building and construction, engineering, and transportation industry.
Rolled aluminium products can be traded for instance as coils, foil, plates, shates, sheets, and strips. These are applications used in various industries including automotive, building and construction, engineering, food, marine, packaging, printing, and transportation.
Moreover, aluminium can be easily recycled and traded as scrap metal. When recycling aluminium applications, they can be completely re-shaped into any product.
Physical Aluminium Trading
In a brief summary, physical aluminium trading involves sourcing and selling unfinished, semi-finished, finished, or scrap aluminium products from and to various counterparties globally.
Most traders and sales managers are specialised on specific aluminium products (e.g. foundry alloys, alloys, extrusions etc.) as well as geographical markets and they are responsible for managing and growing their companies’ client portfolios. To ensure increasing profits, they have to negotiate commercial contracts (spot and long-term) while marketing their products’ qualities and considering external factors that are influencing the pricing of aluminium products (i.e. supply and demand).
Hedging and Derivative Aluminium Trading
The commodities industry is a very volatile market and therefore, both, aluminium producers and traders are hedging their price risk daily. Due to aluminium hedging, risk managers can mitigate the risk of losing money from the price movements. Examples of commonly used hedging platforms are the London Metal Exchange (LME) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
While hedging aluminium is design to offset risk, aluminium traders can also focus on creating various strategies to search for riskier trading opportunities by speculating on different exchanges. Traders can use derivative products like forwards, futures, options, swaps etc. and mostly, candidates are managing a portfolio across different base metals instead of only focusing on aluminium.