Commodities Research Associate

About Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates is a premier asset management firm, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors. Our investment process is driven by a tireless pursuit to understand how the world’s markets and economies work – using cutting edge technology to validate and execute on timeless and universal investment principles. 

Founded in 1975, we are a community of independent thinkers who share a commitment for excellence. By fostering a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion, we strive to unlock the most complex questions in investment strategy, management, and corporate culture. 

Explore more information about Bridgewater on our website here. 

Our Culture

Our culture is anchored in excellence – meaning constant improvement – and it is deeply tied to our mission. Because markets are objective, competitive, and getting smarter everyday, we need to keep rapidly improving to have any chance of beating them. Truth is our most essential tool for engaging with the markets and constantly improving. Because once you know what's true about your problems and opportunities, you can determine how to get better. Valuing truth means being transparent about your decision-making and mistakes, giving and receiving feedback with humility, and fighting for the best answers over hierarchy, ego, or self-interest. Operating this way is hard – it's only possible because we build meaning in our work and relationships. The meaning comes from the audacity of the mission, and the joy of working alongside people who make you a better version of yourself. The culture, like Bridgewater itself, is always evolving. In 1997, our founder Ray Dalio wrote down his lessons, starting with a Philosophy Statement which remains our foundation. This later evolved into a set of 300+ Principles. In 2022, when Ray transitioned the company, we re-underwrote several of those principles and evolved others, with a specific focus on Meritocracy. Today the culture sits, alongside our people, as our most important edge. When we get it right, it’s the engine that powers everything else. 

About Bridgewater’s Asia Strategies Team 

The goal of the Asia Strategies team is to create industry-leading portfolios and investment thinking in Asia, helping investors navigate the changing geopolitical and macroeconomic paradigm. This entails growing deep regional expertise, generating alpha in Asian markets, researching and publishing our understanding of the macroeconomic environment, and designing portfolio solutions to help our clients invest across the region.  

Bridgewater has a long history as an asset manager in Asia. It started when our founder, Ray Dalio, first visited China in 1984, and we have been trading Asian markets since 1992. Asian markets have always been a core part of our global macro investment strategies, and Asian economies feature prominently in the research we have published on debt cycles and the changing world order. Bridgewater has offices in only two places – the US and Asia – reflecting the region’s strategic importance. Our first Asia-focused fund, launched in 2018, is now among the largest private funds in China. 

About Your Role

As a Commodities Research Associate on our Asia Strategies team, you will help Bridgewater invest in commodity markets, with a strong focus on agricultural commodities, based on a unique and differentiated view of both supply-demand fundamentals and Chinese market dynamics. You will build deep expertise in how agricultural prices – and shifts in those prices – impact broader commodity markets and macroeconomic forces such as growth and inflation. 

You will drive the following responsibilities: 

• Partner with our investors to research questions on commodity markets and commodity-producing companies, with a specific focus on agriculturals, and turn that understanding into systematic trading strategies and investment advice for our clients 
• Help build, maintain, and consistently refine commodity balance sheets; acquire and organize the production and consumption of trade data needed to support those balance sheets 
• Manage and update key building blocks of understanding including data, models, and visualizations 
• Monitor and raise observations about new or changing conditions in the world 
• Access data and ingest them in a systematic way (strong technical aptitude and coding experience is a plus) 

We are looking for candidates with the following minimum qualifications: 

• 4+ years of experience at a commodities trading house, research group, hedge fund, or merchant 
• Proven track record trading agricultural commodities in onshore China (soybeans, rapeseed, palm oil, corn), ideally also with experience in softs (sugar, cotton) 
• Fluency in Mandarin 
• Strong work ethic, strong attention to detail, and demonstrated ability to achieve results and drive projects to completion 
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and organize time effectively in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment 
• Physical Requirements
• The anticipated onsite requirement for this role is four days per week. Candidates can be based in our New York City, Shanghai, or Singapore campuses.

Why Choose Bridgewater?

It takes all types to make Bridgewater great. We seek a diverse group of innovative thinkers and push them to engage in rigorous and thoughtful inquiry. We develop people through an honest examination of their abilities and performance, enabling personal growth and professional development. We strive to provide you opportunities that will challenge you and unlock your potential. 

Compensation And Benefits

The expected annual base salary for this position is $150,000-$300,000. The total compensation package includes variable compensation in the form of a discretionary target bonus. 

Interested in learning more about working at Bridgewater? Hear about the experiences of our employees here. 

One of our core priorities at Bridgewater is to enable our employees to build a great life and career, and we believe our benefits are an important extension of that philosophy. As such, currently Bridgewater offers a competitive suite of benefits. Explore more information about Bridgewater’s benefits on our website here.    

Bridgewater reserves the right to change its current benefits program at any time, in a manner that is consistent with applicable federal and state regulations. 

This job description is not a contract and confers no contractual rights, privileges, or benefits on any applicant or potential applicant. Bridgewater has the right to change any and all terms of this job description, including, but not limited to, job responsibilities, qualifications and benefits. Nothing in this job description constitutes an offer or guarantee of employment. Please note that we do provide immigration sponsorship for this position. 

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer