Morning Coffee: Why Goldman Sachs' most desirable trader chose neither bank nor hedge fund. What if your 20s are your top earning years in finance?

Goldman Sachs has some hot traders. The hottest among them now may be metals traders. With gold, silver and copper prices all breaking records, metals traders are particularly desired. - Citadel is building a new metals trading business. Deutsche Bank returned to gold trading in November. Bloomberg reported in October that banks and hedge funds have been battling for precious metals traders and driving up their pay.

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In this context, it's worth noting at Goldman Sachs' head of precious metals trading, Benjamin Binet-Laisne has chosen to join commodities trading firm Mercuria rather than a bank or a hedge fund. Bloomberg reported Binet-Laisne's move yesterday. 

He's not alone in selecting Mercuria as his preferred destination. Nick O'Kane, Macquarie's top commodities trader also went there in 2024. 

What makes Mercuria so alluring? The appeal might be related to its combination of high profitability and low level of employees. The Financial Times reported earlier this month that Mercuria generated $1.3bn in profits for 2025. The firm employs circa 1,300 people, implying profits of $1m per head. Bloomberg reported a few weeks ago that Mercuria's co-CEOs, Marco Dunand and President Daniel Jaeggi, shared dividends of $1bn for 2023. 

In this context, earning $47m as CEO of Goldman Sachs doesn't look as impressive. Citadel's pay seems more appealing, particularly in the commodities team, but Binet-Laisne obviously liked the look of Mercuria more.

Separately, Instagram personality High Yield Harry has been telling some hard truths on X. "I think a lot of folks need to remember that your mid-20s to late 30s might be peak earnings years," he warns. "You should be saving a lot of money and compounding. If you get bounced from a seat, you might not get a new one."

Harry was referring to buy-side jobs at credit funds, where he says portfolio manager seats are limited compared to analyst jobs and therefore "you need to have high conviction that you’ll be a PM one day." However, a similar dynamic is coming to banking, where juniors in M&A tell us they're competing to make VP before AI automates roles out of existence. 

Meanwhile...

State Street is creating 300 operations jobs in Abu Dhabi. (Bloomberg) 

Umesh Subramanian is stepping down as Citadel CTO after seven years and doing a non-technology role internally. Andrew Janian is returning as interim CTO after leaving in May 2025. (Business Insider) 

Deutsche Bank made two hires in emerging credit trading. Thomas Fitzpatrick, joined from Mizuho Securities. Christopher Staudt joined from HSBC. (Bloomberg) 

Santander hired Philip Lindop, Barclays’s global co-head of metals and mining dealmaking. (Financial News) 

The Netherlands has lifted its regulations restricting bonuses to one fifth of fixed pay. However, it will remain in place for senior material risk-takers. (Bloomberg) 

KPMG's partners received an average of £880k for the 12 months to September 2025. This is the first time they've earned more than partners at PwC and EY for a decade. (Financial Times) 

Cameron Bird, a veteran EY partner in infrastructure advisory, sent an email saying the firm has become 'dominated by a rigid, top-down culture.' (The Times) 

Cannot stress how much of an advantage it is to be a normal, well adjusted, applicant for banking roles. I reviewed a resume that listed “olive oil” as an interest. That is not an interest. (X) 

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