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Hedge funds step up hiring of natural gas traders. * September 2, 2026 * - 10:58 am Related topics. Hedge funds are intensifying their search for natural gas traders as Europe heads towards another potentially volatile winter, with tighter supplies and geopolitical risks creating a bigger opportunity set for energy-focused strategies, according to a report by eFinancial Careers. The competition for experienced gas traders has become particularly intense, with leading hedge funds prepared to offer significantly greater earnings potential than traditional energy companies and trading houses. Balyasny Asset Management has been among the firms expanding its natural gas capabilities. The hedge fund has hired Sayan Palchowdhury in New York from DRW, where he had been trading natural gas after beginning his career in the market at Goldman Sachs. The move comes as Balyasny continues to build out its gas operation, including a European physical natural gas trading business established under Kristian Juncker in 2024. The firm has also recruited commodities specialists from Centrica's energy trading operation. DRW, meanwhile, has experienced a series of departures from its gas trading business. Recent exits include former US gas trading head Teoman Guler, European gas trading head Hayn Park, Michael Kennedy, Adam Findlay and Andrew Mugica, who moved to Millennium. Palchowdhury's departure adds to the turnover. Recruiters say the battle for experienced natural gas specialists has reached unusually high levels. The compensation differential is helping drive the migration. Traders at energy merchants and utilities can typically receive around 15% and 10% of the profits they generate respectively, according to Gregory, compared with the potential for more than 20% at a hedge fund. Recent moves have included Zach Millman, who has moved from BP via Millennium to Castletown Commodities, while Xing Yuan has joined ExodusPoint.

Hedge funds are hiring natural gas traders as Europe braces for winter. 2 minutes ago Winter is coming and Europe is short of gas. Hedge funds are doing something about it. They are hiring portfolio managers to take advantage of the volatility. DRW in particular seems to be suffering from departures. Following the exits of Teoman Guler, (head of US gas trading), Hayn Park (head of European gas trading), Michael Kennedy, Adam Findlay and Andrew Mugica (who's gone to Millennium), DRW has also lost Sayan Palchowdhury in New York. Palchowdhury, who began his career trading natural gas at Goldman Sachs, has gone to Balyasny Asset Management (BAM). Balyasny isn't commenting. The fund has been building out its natural gas trading business for at least two years and started building a physical natural gas trading business in Europe under Kristian Juncker in 2024. It's also been raiding Centrica energy, the trading arm of Denmark's Centrica group. Financial News reported this week that funds like raiding Danish gas talent because top engineering schools in Aarhus produce excellent commodities talent, and Denmark is proximate to the key German market. Rupak Ghose noted previously that Aarhus, a port city on the east coast of Jutland, has more than a dozen natural gas trading firms and is a focal point for talent. Kamran Subherwal, head of commodities at Redstone Search, said there's been a string of natural gas moves this year and that the "opportunity set in this sphere is decisively widening." Ross Gregory, the New York-based head of global commodities at search firm Omerta Group, a Kingsley Gate company, said the battle for natural gas traders has hit a "peak level." Top traders tend to have three to four hedge funds bidding for them at once, said Gregory. Traders from energy trading merchants and utilities firms who typically receive 15% and 10% respectively of their PnL are moving to hedge funds where they can 20%+. The recent natural gas movers also include Zach Millman, who went from BP to Millennium to Castletown Commodities and Xing Yuan, who's just gone to ExodusPoint. Gregory says natural gas is an increasingly complicated market to trade. "Natural Gas markets are interlinked globally more than ever, and traders need a greater understanding of broader factors affecting the US & European markets and how they link to LNG/TTF," Gregory observes. It's not just the fact that gas supply has been reduced by war in the Middle East. "El Nino is reshaping weather risks for the natural gas market," he adds. Although hedge funds are out there hiring natural gas traders, Gregory says they're wary of paying huge sign-on bonuses. "What we are seeing now, is that hedge funds will not just pay a lumpy sign-on for the sake of it. They might offer a first year guarantee or accelerator on PnL instead." It probably doesn't help that funds have lost money when gas prices have fluctuated in the past. The Financial Times reported that DRW lost $176m earlier this year. Roscommon Analytics closed its US gas trading desk in January after losses. Rival hedge funds have been picking over its people. Follow me on X. Follow me on LinkedIn. Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you'd like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email [email protected]. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate. The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits. Boost your career. Find thousands of job opportunities by signing up to eFinancialCareers today. Top Articles

Silicon Data raises $30.5 million Series A to build the independent benchmark layer for the AI compute economy. Silicon Data, providing GPU performance data for companies, led by Carmen Li, and the team, has announced a $30.5 million initial closing of its Series A, led by the Valor Atreides AI Fund, with additional investment from CME Ventures, DRW, F-Prime, Samsung Next, VanEck, Further, Jump, Tectonic, and Wintermute. Breed, Hack, Blank VC, Sancus Ventures, and SoGal Ventures also participated. The Series A will support expansion across four areas: benchmark pricing, performance measurement through SiliconMark, institutional and alternative data, and risk infrastructure for derivatives, insurance, and credit markets. The funding comes as CME Group prepares to use Silicon Data benchmarks for its planned cash-settled GPU futures market, pending regulatory approval. The instrument would allow market participants to hedge exposure to changes in GPU rental prices using a published daily benchmark. Silicon Data CEO Carmen Li said compute is becoming a critical input for the global economy, while the infrastructure for measuring its value, performance, and risk remains underdeveloped. She said Silicon Data aims to provide the independent benchmarks needed to bring greater transparency and standardization to the compute market. Since raising a $4.7 million seed round in March 2025, Silicon Data has grown from a small data provider into a prominent player in compute economics, with more than 1,000 registered users across semiconductor manufacturers, AI companies, and financial institutions. The company has developed nine financial-grade indices covering GPUs and LLMs, alongside market intelligence and alternative datasets tracking supply, demand, utilization, pricing, and economics across the compute ecosystem. Part of the funding will support SiliconMark, which independently measures the real-world performance of GPU infrastructure. Identical GPUs can deliver different output depending on networking, topology, and configuration. By standardizing performance across clusters, SiliconMark can help market participants manage output risk and enable future physical delivery of compute resources. Atreides Management Managing Partner and CIO Gavin Baker said compute has become foundational to the AI economy, but lacks the pricing infrastructure that mature commodity markets use to manage risk. He said Silicon Data is building the benchmark and pricing layer needed to support compute futures and make large-scale AI infrastructure easier to finance. Valor Equity Partners Founder, CEO, and CIO Antonio Gracias said Silicon Data is building the measurement and market intelligence infrastructure needed as the compute economy expands. He highlighted the company's GPU pricing transparency and performance benchmarking as key tools for navigating market uncertainty and supporting the growth of AI infrastructure. Silicon Data spent two years building the pricing and performance data needed to support a compute futures market before one existed. The new funding will help establish common benchmarks across the compute ecosystem, giving buyers, sellers, exchanges, and financial institutions shared reference points. Remote Hire With Us: Menlo Talent helps technology companies hire exceptional remote talent from India. Build your team with carefully curated engineers, product leaders, designers, GTM professionals, and more. Learn More At: https://www.menlotimes.com/menlo-talent