As Wall St ails, oil traders weigh return to roots

For a growing number of oil traders, there's a new math at work in the traditional career calculus: why take the stress, long hours and uncertainty of a Wall Street job when the easy money is in physical trading?

Oil companies and trading firms may find themselves better able to challenge the banks in the area of offering third-party risk management; the banks may find themselves increasingly struggling to trade in physical markets, which have proven to be a cash cow this year.

In one regard oil companies and banks are already growing marginally more similar: Many oil companies took more risk on their energy trading desks last year, while many of the biggest investment banks took less, according to corporate filings.

The full story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/id … YA20090618