Alphadyne Asset Management has joined the growing list of hedge funds aggressively recruiting senior talent from big banks’ commodity trading desks with the appointment of Thomas Byuen, JPMorgan’s Global Head of Commodity-Index Trading, as a portfolio manager.

The report cites an unnamed source familiar with the matter as confirming that the $9bn macro-focused hedge fund is continuing to expand its commodities team, despite a challenging year for the strategy.

And Alphadyne is not alone in doing so with Balyasny Asset Management and Jain Global having also recently poached top commodity traders from major financial institutions.

Despite facing a 4% decline this year, commodities trading remains an attractive area for funds, thanks to its strong performance over the past half-decade. According to PivotalPath, a hedge-fund industry research firm, the strategy has delivered an impressive annualised return of 13.9% over the last five years, making it the top-performing strategy in their database.

Balyasny hired Goldman Sachs’ then-Head of Commodity-Index Trading, Dan Deighton, in 2022, while LMR Partners brought on Mike Severo, Deighton’s successor, earlier this year. Jain Global meanwhile, which launched earlier this year, made a similar move by hiring Max Lee, Bank of America’s Head of Commodity and Foreign-Exchange Systematic Strategy t Trading.