When markets go haywire, the traders who move fastest tend to win. Glencore, the Swiss-headquartered commodities giant, apparently decided early in the US-Iran conflict that its standard risk guardrails were leaving money on the table, and went to its board to ask for permission to lift them.

The company sought formal waivers from its board of directors allowing traders to take on positions larger than their normal limits permitted, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The request came during the early days of the US war on Iran, a period when energy and metals markets were swinging violently enough to make normal trading limits look like an obstacle rather than a safeguard.

The numbers behind the decision

Context for how well this has been going: Glencore posted roughly $3.3 billion in earnings before interest and taxes from its marketing division in the first half of 2026 alone. That figure already surpasses what the company earned from trading across the entire calendar year of 2025.

Analysts have noted that if market disruptions continue into the second half of 2026 at a comparable intensity, Glencore is on track for what could be one of its most profitable trading years on record. Energy and metals prices have both surged, and the firm’s ability to move physical commodities across a complex global logistics network has become a genuine competitive advantage in an environment where that network is under stress.