The key to this evolution, not revolution, is that most people in business, who have never worked in commodity or energy trading, quickly learn that this space is a paradox. Trading operates at twenty times the pace than any other company activity, yet it moves slowly in time in comparison to the other technological advances…
It is that time of the year when it is time to evaluate traders and trading groups. There is no doubt a lot of value you have brought to the trading desk, group, and especially the company. You are probably frustrated that some of your value, and it could a lot of your value, is…
There are certain tasks you must do here to launch a project into a state of momentum. When projects find momentum, the people working on that project find great satisfaction and some even have fun. You just know when that’s happening – it feels good. Many, though, have never been in this zone, so let’s…
Contract Hedging – The Candy Store If you have a perception that you cannot leverage contracts into hedging programs, you are missing a very large opportunity. I have negotiated deals directly with the largest companies from GE to ExxonMobil, and down to mom and pop businesses. The size of the company, or that they are…
This section is separated to focus the reader on macro-level hedging vs. micro-level feedstock or product hedging. There are many approaches, and I will share how a few of these at first glance show no compelling reasons to use a hedge. But, after showing a few examples and some additional thought, that macro-level benchmarking to…
