Attention to Detail

This is one of those cliches that gets thrown around, and largely ignored outside of listing your strengths on a resume. But when it comes to commodity trading, it can be the difference between saving the day and losing six figures.

When I was a couple of months into my first role as an operator, I set up a payment for ocean freight. The amount was pretty negligible, only EUR 975.00, but importantly it was being paid to a small shipping company in an obscure country.

For this particular contract, we were required to send proof of payment for freight to our supplier so I requested the SWIFT from treasury. Most of the time you wouldn't study a SWIFT, it's just a confirmation of payment, but for whatever reason that day I gave it a second look. What I noticed in the value box made my stomach drop - instead of EUR 975.00, was EUR 975,000. We had just paid 1000* too much for the ocean freight.

After checking the payment order to make sure I hadn't made an error setting it up, I rushed to my manager to see what could be done. It was then that I learned that in Europe, decimal points are often used as a thousand separator, and commas are used as the decimal separator.

Fortunately, we were able to contact our bank and reverse the payment, but it was a very nervous few hours for all involved. The payments procedure was also changed to include writing out the payment amount in the same way you would when writing a cheque. For those of you under 25 years old, a cheque is a way of paying people through the mail. We also used to have to dial the internet in order to use it.

It's extremely easy to overlook details when they become part of your daily routine. But in trading, tiny errors have the potential to cause huge losses. It's always worth double-checking things even when it seems mundane. This is the reason most companies use a 'buddy-check' system for tasks like payments and hedging, using a second set of eyes to prevent errors before they occur.