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- Alphadyne Asset Management hired JPMorgan's Thomas Byuen as a commodity index portfolio manager.
- Hedge funds like Balyasny and Jain Global have poached big bank commodity traders in recent years.
- Despite losing money this year, commodity strategies have been a top performer for the past five years.
Hedge funds' push into commodities continues unabated, even amid a down year for the strategy.
Alphadyne Asset Management is the latest fund to scoop up a commodity index portfolio manager from the sell side, hiring JPMorgan's Thomas Byuen, according to a person familiar with the matter, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Byuen, global head of commodity index trading, joined the bank in 2012 out of college, according to his LinkedIn profile and industry records.
A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment. Alphadyne, a macro fund with $8.8 billion in assets at the start of the year, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hedge funds have raided big banks for commodities trading talent in recent years as the strategy's popularity has grown, thanks in part to the billions in profits reaped by industry giant Citadel. The strategy is down more than 4% this year, according to the hedge fund commodities index from industry research firm PivotalPath, but it has gained 13.9% annualized over the past five years — the top-performing strategy in PivotalPath's database.
Many funds refrain from trading physical commodities, a heavy lift requiring expensive infrastructure. Instead, they typically dip their toes in by trading more liquid and less risky strategies, like futures and, increasingly, indexes that encompass an array of products.
Balyasny Asset Management hired Goldman Sachs commodity index head Dan Deighton in 2022 to lead its push into the sector. LMR Partners earlier this year hired Mike Severo, Deighton's successor at the bank.
More recently, Jain Global, the most hyped new hedge fund launch in years, hired BofA's Max Lee, head of commodity and FX systematic strategy trading. Commodities is a top strategy at the fund, which brought in ex-Macquarie exec David Hochberg to lead the unit.