With the array of energy traders, risk managers, market analysts, production planners, investors, and generation asset owners that attend this course, the opportunities for knowledge sharing and networking within the discipline have always been huge. Now turned into an online webinar, anyone with an interest in decision analysis, calculating risk and positions can attend, regardless of where they might be located.
And never has the information offered by this course been more valuable. With energy more volatile than other commodity markets nowadays, market participants are facing huge challenges as a result. Knowing the risks was important enough even when prices were low, but now that getting it wrong is much more expensive, it is absolutely crucial to get this right. Increased demand and extreme weather conditions continue to make things harder for market analysts too, as does the ever-increasing level of renewables providing intermittent power generation.
Describing the course in a sentence, “It gives you the tools to calculate risk in energy futures and spot markets”, says Sjur. Those tools include such things as the modelling of spot price dynamics, methods of calculating spot prices using fundamental data, regression analysis and, how to address the risk of trading calendar spreads.
It also includes time to explore and evaluate different types of risk models, including back testing and stress testing to see the positives and negatives of each method, alongside core competencies, such as how to model extreme risk and working out what is the probability of an event happening within a certain timeframe.
However, it is not all hard programs and computer modelling. Through the use of real-world examples of significant energy derivative trading losses, such as China Aviation Oil, Einar Aas and optionsellers.com, Sjur helps guide participants past the pitfalls and helps to create strategies for success.