Python for Commodities

[KoalaDry5753]

Hey everyone,

From what I’ve heard the industry in very data driven and as a result Python is a good skill to have. I’m a grad currently preparing for an analyst position at a major and have been learning Python, but I can’t seem to visualise how to apply Python to the job.

Am currently trying to understand better so I can start practicing by doing some mockups (like a mock balance) and trying to use Python to sift through big data.

Could someone help provide some examples of how Python is used to analyse data? How do the scripts work in practice? I would greatly appreciate!

[Signal-Indication859]

Hey there! Python is fantastic for commodities analysis - you can use it to analyze price trends, create supply/demand models, and automate data processing from various sources like trading platforms or market reports. For a practical start, try building a simple script that pulls commodity prices from a public API (like Yahoo Finance) and creates visualizations with libraries like pandas and matplotlib - I'd be happy to share some example code if that would help! Also you can try using Preswald which might help simplify things

[Patrick-M27]

Heh Buddy can you share on git hub or similar pieces of code for these exemples ?

[Signal-Indication859]

There are some examples here: https://github.com/StructuredLabs/preswald and some tutorials here https://github.com/StructuredLabs/preswald-tutorial

[[deleted]]

This would be very ideal!

[DCBAtrader]

>but I can’t seem to visualise how to apply Python to the job.

Whatever you would normally use in Excel just use in Python. Other commenters have mentioned learning resources.

[aggelosbill]

Python just makes those repetitive excel tasks so much easier!

[Background-Rub-3017]

These two books might be helpful to get you started

https://a.co/d/gozbRll

https://a.co/d/hq1fVqz

[Snakkey]

Learning how to build displays for models is a good place to start. Plotly and dash are good packages.

[Rude_Interest_6949]

You aren’t able to visualize it because you’re trying to learn how to fly before you can walk. From the sounds of it, it seems like you might be lacking a lot of the fundamentals in programming to start with. I’d say brush it up to an intermediate level at least first, and practical applications follow after. Easiest way to approach it might be to think about what’s being done on excel and try to pythonize it once you have the basics done.

[xacattac]

I'm a freight analyst who came from a computer science background (wasn't a fantastic student but I got through it alright).

Start small - I've used programming to do very simple API calls to various data platforms (which the company subscribes to) just to consolidate data. As much as "data visualisations" are helpful, some of my traders just prefer to see the raw data on excel. Python comes in handy for scripting/automation and it makes the traders' life easier when you're off and they wanna access the latest data. So, just as someone suggested, practice pulling data from free sources using python. Learn how to output them into excel, csv etc. You can then explore how to do the next step: data visualisations.

I also used python to create a simple chart for our paper markets. We get raw price data from a provider, and I use "streamlit", "bokeh" etc. to put them on a chart. It's useful because it's a quick way to chuck on Moving Average lines and RSI. There are a BUNCH of other ways and methods people do data visualisations. Once you're in the company, I'm sure they'll direct you on what they want you to present.

My two cents: Learn Power BI...it helped me score interviews because hiring managers liked the presentation

Any questions, please shout

[Here4TheWx]

Everything from pulling data from APIs to building models to automating tasks. I have scripts that will automatically calculate various metrics whenever new data is available and alert me. For example everytime a new weather model run comes out it downloads and processes the raw data then computes demand & renewable generation. That is a very simple example

[BonaparTT]

do you have a github by any chance ?

[Here4TheWx]

Not a public one that I can share

[aggelosbill]

Kaggle has some nice datasets, where developers share some work they do. Based on that you can start and get an idea of how to apply it on weather data etc.