[Career] Advice: Job Interview with Japanese Trading Company

Art Vandelay?

 

Bring some oranges. They'll love you for it.

 

Japanese people love silver dollar pancakes.

 

Take a camera so you can snap pictures of everything. Ask someone to take your picture as you stand in front of various items.

Also, talk a lot about WWII and ask if Geisha girls are part of the benefits package.

 

haha.


It sounds like the company you are applying for deals with metal commodities.

You can throw out talking points like how Copper prices have been in retreat due to the unwinding of the Japanese Carry Trade. The carry trade has been responsible for alot of speculative purchases and price inflation in copper and other base metals.

Steel is down -8% YTD, and analysts are expecting it to gain about 7% higher by the end of the year.

Nickel has been lagging behind other metals at -16% for the year, but is expected to gain about 28% from consensus of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Analysts have shown in recent years they aren't the best source of accurate info on companies/price estimates, but it could be something you can just throw out in the interview to make it appear that you have some knowledge of the metals markets.

I have some links for some financial blogs that talk about metals and other commodities if you are interested in catching up on the current state of these markets.

 

Chances are you won't be able to practice your Spanish skills if you spend time traveling to the company's South America offices, since the most Japanese people in the world (outside Japan) are actually in Brazil.

 

Actually, a big issue with Asian importers/exporters right now is their currency valuations. Japan has benefited from a undervalued Yen for some time now. Basically the cheaper the Yen, the more they can sell imports to countries like the USA.

Japan exports 134 Billion in goods to the USA vs imports of 62B from the USA. Thus any appreciation of the Yen in relation to the dollar will be devastating to Japanese industries like car manufacturers and electronics.

Right now the Yen is possibly breaking out of its long term downtrend, and may signal some problems for their exporters.

 

No problem.

I think the Yen and currency valuations are the most important thing that will effect the company you are applying for. Thus you will want to be somewhat versed in the movements of the Yen in relation to the Dollar and the Yen in relation to the Euro. Also pay attention to the Yen in relation to the New Zealand Dollar since that is the predominant way the Japanese carry trade is utilized.

So thus you will also need to know about the Japanese carry trade. Basically it involves borrowing money from Japanese banks at very low interest rates (.50% or lower) and taking that money and investing in other foreign investments. The reason why the Yen comes into play in the carry trade is b/c when it comes time to pay the Japanese bank back, you have to return the funds in Yen currency. So if the Yen appreciates in value, you will be losing out on some of the profit of your initial carry/arbitrage type trade.

Right now the carry trade is being watched closely, since alot of American speculators borrowed from American banks and invested in American and other securities. So as these American speculators after seeing recent US market volatility have decided to pull out of US equity markets. They are pulling out the funds they borrowed from Japanese banks initially. So when the return the funds to Japan, they will be converting the US dollars into Japanese currency to return to the bank. But when they do this, the Yen appreciates in value since it is being bought.

So thus it ties into the first part where I talked about how an appreciating Yen is bad for Japanese exporters. Same thing with China, but China is manipulating their currency purposely, and thus having a great boom in exports right now.

Then you could talk in more detail about the metals.

http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespoke/2007/08/commodities-ret.html

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=33522


The Bespoke blog has the best info on commodities, but there is no search engine built into it, so you will have to search on Google with Bespoke and Commodities or Metals as the keywords.

This talks about the carry trade:

http://www.thefinancialwhiz.com/2007/08/16/the-death-of-the-carry-trade-think-again/

 

You'll probably need to understand basic int. finance principles like hedging against exchange rate fluctuation (eliminate uncertainty with regard to payables and receivables), hedging with swaps, exposures (transaction, economic...), and so on.

 

Sounds like a memorable time at the strip joint.

 

Focus on importing

 

A job where they will hire you based on your college major that doesn't include engineering? That sounds like an interesting alternate reality.

Better nail that interview. Don't rely on your college major, I've never heard of major companies really putting that much weight in someone's experience in someone with an IR major, people in HR went to college too so they know it really doesn't amount to much. A college degree only tells them that you are capable of learning, so explain why you will succeed in that job based on your experience and personality, not on what classes you've taken.

 

Good luck !!

And don't forget to say that the Sony PS3 kicks MS X-box 360's butt, even if it isn't true.

It always comes down to games...

 

What are they trading?

Pokemon Cards?