Bear Stearns and BNP Paribas have hired staff to their precious metal groups in a bid to take advantage of robust commodities markets.

Bear has hired Robert Cameron as a managing director to head spot trading in New York. He joins from Mitsubishi Metals Trading and has traded metals for more than 15 years. Gary Spencer joins the US investment bank as managing director in charge of options trading. He spent more than 15 years in commodity and foreign exchange option trading at JP Morgan.