Energy Trading Compliance Programs: Basic Components in a Changing Energy Regulatory Environment

By Glenn Reitman, Partner, Thompson & Knight LLP, October, 30, 2009 - Currently energy trading in the United States, both physical and financial, is regulated by the federal government. One of the theories behind such regulation is to facilitate just and reasonable rates for the trading of energy commodities and determine the propriety of any exemptions. Even with exemptions, however, the regulation of financial trading of energy commodities requires participants to ensure that their actions are carried out in a manner that accurately reflects market prices, as well as supply and demand. Therefore, U.S. regulators have called for, and industry participants have voluntarily agreed to, the creation of some form of energy trading compliance programs for businesses engaging in energy trading. more...
Article Viewed 735 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

The Smart Grid and the Free Rider Issues Of Locational Marginal Pricing

By Thomas Lord, President, Volatility Managers, LLC, October, 06, 2009 - The latest rush is to create the smart grid. It is good that the impetus is governmental funds because there is a long term problem for the smart grid from a real option basis. The problem is that any corporate or individual investment in demand control/demand reduction has greater benefit to the rest of the grid than it does to the person making the investment. I wrote as early as 2003 here at Energy Pulse that LMP markets would make infrastructure investment an issue in the power market. The smart grid is just infrastructure investment writ large. more...
Article Viewed 1518 Times | 26 Comments

How to Trade Natural Gas, Crude Oil & Gold ETFs

By Chris Vermeulen, Founder, www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com, September, 18, 2009 - How to trade hot commodities like natural gas, oil and gold -- We should see big moves in the coming weeks as gas bottoms, and oil & gold breakout or breakdown. A lot of money is going to be exchanging hands quickly and the key is to be on the receiving end of things. Below are some charts showing where these commodities are trading. more...
Article Viewed 1269 Times | 1 Comments

Oil: A Final Note on Speculation vs. Fundamentals

By Ferdinand E. Banks, Professor, , August, 17, 2009 - Some controversy remains as to whether speculation or fundamentals were behind the spectacular rise in the oil price in 2008, or for that matter the rise in the oil price during the last 6 months. The dissention can partially be traced to academics like myself, who have been careless in our explanations of this issue. For instance, even in my textbooks (2000,2007) I failed to note that the speculators in question are not like the ladies and gentlemen in the neighbourhood betting shops in Sydney (Australia), nor the young lads who used the alley behind my home in Chicago as the site for an occasional game of dice. more...
Article Viewed 2044 Times | 16 Comments

The Oil & Natural Gas Report

By Chris Vermeulen, Founder, www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com, July, 30, 2009 - With so much happening in the market, emotions flying high and from being blinded by fear and greed many investors are wondering "What do I do now?" more...
Article Viewed 1812 Times | 2 Comments

The magically deflating oil price: Is it all about speculation?

By Tam Hunt, Director of Energy Programs, Community Environmental Council, January, 23, 2009 - Question: Are speculators and Enron ex-employees behind oil price turbulence, as 60 Minutes recently asserted? Answer: No. more...
Article Viewed 4369 Times | 82 Comments

Anticipating the Climate Black Swan

By michael ferrari, VP Technology, WTI, January, 15, 2009 - While the idea has been the central thesis of many of Nassim Taleb's writings over the last several years, the publication of TheBlackSwan¹ could not be more timely. Further, the more we look around us, the more we see Black Swans in today's global commercial and financial complex, as well as in the world at large. Many readers in the commodities sector are no doubt familiar with Taleb's popularization of Black Swans. For those who are not, the premise goes back to the formerly accepted Euro-centric idea that all swans are white. That is until the Europeans first traveled to Australia and discovered this was not the case. Contemporary economics, short-term thinking, and the need to quantify and compartmentalize our ideas in order to make sense of them, all serve to remove the 'gray area' from our sense of reasoning; unfortunately, the gray area is the source material from where the highest potential for discovery lies. Saying all swans are white was correct, until the first documentation of a black-colored species. Previous models become useless, and the world view changes in an instant. Extending this to other areas of contemporary markets, most of the major financial risks were assumed to be properly hedged, until the recent collapse of the banking system. Weather has these Black Swans too. It follows that blindly assuming continued warming climate trends will lead to the observation of slightly warmer temperatures year over year may work for a while, until a cold snap like the one that hit the eastern US at the beginning of last winter produces one of the coldest starts to winter in many years. This is the example that will be discussed in this brief paper. more...
Article Viewed 5453 Times | 125 Comments

Speculation and the Price Of Oil

By Ferdinand E. Banks, Professor, , June, 30, 2008 - INTRODUCTION more...
Article Viewed 8765 Times | 67 Comments

Is It Time for Utilities to Think about the Implications of VaR Management?

By Thomas Lord, President, Volatility Managers, LLC, April, 18, 2007 - The introduction of VaR (Value at Risk) to utility risk management was a quantum leap in the efficacy of commodity risk control in the late 1990s. It removed the subjective “prices can’t do this” risk management with a quantifiable set of metrics that provided greater analysis and precision in the utility processes. But it came at a cost. more...
Article Viewed 3140 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

Insider Secret: Pseudo Dispatch Arrangements

By Brent Torgrimson, Independent Consultant, , March, 01, 2007 - I’ve been in wholesale power marketing and trading since the late ‘80s. Early on, I picked up some fascinating ideas from very smart and creative engineers - ideas I’m surprised go largely unused. This is puzzling to me, because I think they’re truly great. more...
Article Viewed 2748 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

Articles