Outside of these two models point of salvation

Very juicy before the outbreak of the financial crisis, the activity of negotiating contracts on natural resources has become significantly more risky. The class of assets has been victim of massive liquidations of positions on a background of falling prices and increasing volatility of prices. Operators must never have strong kidney and have a great capacity of expertise. Barclays Capital and JPMorgan more emerge more as leading players, able to wear the iron in the strongholds of the leading historical, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Activities traditionally carried by major banks, the negotiation of the derivatives of the raw materials made the cost of the collapse of several of them. Lehman Brothers, become a great actor of structured products and these products OTC trade, two years before its bankruptcy has purely and simply disappeared. Many of its activities were taken over by Barclays Capital. The fate of those of Merrill Lynch, acquired by Bank of America, remains uncertain. Led by John Thain is very active and long sides of the energy and metals contracts. Its presence in the natural resources represent approximately 10-15 of its overall FX (foreign exchange) activity. Merrill Lynch is also present on the physical market for oil.

Redistribution and concentration

The demise of Bear Stearns, she received at JPMorgan, who took over including Bear Energy, very present on the markets for natural gas and electricity in the United States. Early in 2008, JPMorgan had also bought ClimateCare, specialized in carbon finance. As UBS, he is currently completing the fundamental restructuring of its branch dedicated to the negotiation of raw decided early in October. Shortly before Christmas, the Swiss Bank had sold to JPMorgan completeness of its Canadian operations in the energy and all of its business in agriculture. Friday, UBS transferred to Barclays Capital positions that it operates in base metals, oil, American electricity and natural gas. And Monday it acquired, for about $ 150 million, the assets based on indices of raw materials (DJ - AIG) of the US insurer AIG collapse. The Swiss financial institution intends to focus exclusively on the operations on precious metals and the trackers.

With more than 1,100 clients distributed throughout the world, Barclays Capital today claimed third place in the world financial institutions engaged in natural resource markets. The English Bank believes hard as iron in the virtues of this activity. JPMorgan, for its part, pointed out on 15 January, at the presentation of its latest quarterly accounts, "robust performance in the raw". But these two heavyweights are not only be strengthened. Participants more small size have not missed the opportunity to consolidate their positions in the image of Credit Switzerland, Deutsche Bank, RBS, or even the French Société Générale, BNP Paribas and Calyon. According to John Kemp, former Chief Economist at Sempra Metals, market polarizes. On the one hand, the Giants with significant capital and therefore able to offer a wide range of services. The other banks who offer products targeted and simplified by relying on desks of small size and low costs. Outside of these two models, point of salvation.