Brokers were paid a fixed minimum commission on shares and gilts, which ripped off big clients, and jobbers lacked the capital to deal in big amounts.

Adage Capital Management pulled some of their money out of Bear Stearns's prime-brokerage division, which lends money and processes trades for large clients.

Besides handling large volumes of trades for clients via the opaque over-the-counter commodity-swaps markets, they are also large commodity traders in their own right.