Despite its stellar growth in commodities, JP Morgan has also witnessed first-hand how risky trading in raw materials can be. One trader lost $130m after betting on a drop in European coal prices, which then rose, Bloomberg reported in August last year.

The newswire published extracts from a leaked conference call to staff in which Blythe Masters, who is in charge of the business, admitted the trader was "overexposed in the market", adding: "We made a bit of a rookie error."