The world's top commodities traders have pocketed nearly $250 billion over the last decade, making the individuals and families that control the largely privately-owned sector big beneficiaries of the rise of China and other emerging countries. The net income of the largest trading houses since 2003 surpasses that of the combination of mighty Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, or that of an industrial giant like General Electric. They made more money than Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford Motor, BMW and Renault combined. A review by the Financial Times of thousands of pages of companies' ... (full story)