Navigation
Our RSS Feed
Recent blog posts
- New OnLine Store
- The Financial Crisis—A New ETRM Dislocation Event in the Making? by Gary M. Vasey
- New White Paper Now Available
- The Rising Need for Environmental Software Solutions
- Why Build A Blog? by Dr. Gary M. Vasey
- Financial Traders Impact Price Formation?
- Two New White Papers
- New Vendor Perception Survey
- Keeping Track of CTRM Software – The TRM Directory By Dr. Gary M. Vasey
- Welcome
Research Programs
CommodityPoint undertakes a variety of multi-client sponsored as well as proprietary research into trends and issues in commodity markets and commodity trading. Previously issued report summaries can be viewed on this site here.
CommodityPoint Research - 2009
Although much of the research performed by CommodityPoint is decided based on current market trends and issues, the following research projects are currently underway with reports expected to be produced in the first quarter of 2009;
Commodity Market Changes and Impacts on Physical Traders and Software Solutions
This study will examine the impacts of market shifts on participants, and measure their responses and adjustments to those impacts. This study will be conducted via market research, industry surveys and inspection of available published data. The focus of the research will be, so far as is possible, to assess;
• The styles and types of trading strategies used by major financial traders paying particular interest in the concept of commodities as an asset class. For example, how do large financial institutions view commodities? How are commodities treated in a multi-asset class portfolio? How can this impact risks and price formation for energy traders?
• Impacts on Physical Traders – What are the impacts? How can physical traders better arm themselves to compete and survive in the new energy markets? We will look at issues such as risk management, best practices, credit, trading styles and other issues.
• Impacts on ETRM software – How is ETRM software truly impacted by the influx of larger financial players and the structural changes in commodity and energy markets?
This report is complete and now available for purchase here
CTRM Vendor Perception Study
CommodityPoint conducted similar studies in 2006/2007 publishing the results as two reports in early 2007, one for North America and one for Europe. Two-years later, many things have changed in energy trading and it is time to conduct new benchmarks for the regions to see how these changes have impacted the ETRM software landscape and buying habits. However, the new studies will have a different emphasis in attempting to define vendor and product market leadership across a variety of different categories and will form a valuable and important input into CommodityPoint's forthcoming Vendor Assessment study.
The CommodityPoint Bi-Annual Market Perception Study establishes market perceptions of vendor and product across a wide range of criteria, including functional capabilities, commodity coverage, industry coverage, and market leadership within various categories.
The results of the survey will establish a benchmark by which vendors can measure themselves in terms of market awareness and perceptions. It will also provide vendors and service providers with tangible input into marketing strategies and tactical plans. However, the new version of this study will also be of critical importance to prospective buyers of ETRM software by providing them with a guide as to the wider industry's perceptions of market leaders across an array of categories.
Completion of this study is expected in Q1 2009.
Emissions Trading and Monitoring Software Study
In conjunction with Global Change associates
“Green trading” has now become established and various ‘green’ commodities are now actively traded by a variety of participants including carbon, SOx and Nox as well as RECs (Renwable Energy Credits). Investor interest in trading these commodities is at an all time high. Consequently there is a growing demand for software products that will support these trading and risk management activities as well as in those software products that monitor and help manage emissions. Indeed, as forecast by UtiliPoint in its book “Trends in Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management Software – a Primer” (Booksurge, 2006), these two software categories are morphing as the two software markets collide.
The emerging greenhouse gas market is now ripe for software solutions on an enterprise level. Today, the environmental software space is quite small. It is estimated at $100 million with many small companies developing and extending their domain expertise into this area and beyond energy company applications (energy companies have had to comply with environmental laws in many jurisdictions for over a decade). The need to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions data is becoming a new area of business development for software companies.
Three companies in this environmental software arena that we are familiar with are IHS Global’s ESP offering, MISYS Software’s Open Carbon World portal, Vision Monitor in Houston, Locus Technology in Walnut Creek, California and Carbon Flow in San Francisco. Each is working to create solutions to manage information in this expanding space. Much of this work has primarily focused on the energy industry which already knows its carbon footprint. And therefore, much of the other domain expertise for this new environmental software application will come from the energy trading software companies such as Triple Point Technology, Allegro Development, Open Link Technology and the suite of Sungard products. In this case, the application will be more trading oriented. So, the software division is measuring and managing your carbon footprint, and then trading and structuring division is measuring carbon exposure.
The proposed study will seek to examine the different software solutions in the market building a definitive listing and review of these software products and determine their maturity and likely evolution.
Please contact us for a prospectus.
Risk Management Study
In conjunction with seminal
CommodityPoint and seminel are proposing in this study to examine risk management as follows;
• More detailed review of risk analytics deployed by commodity and energy trading firms and their value to traders under current market conditions;
• An assessment of the systems employed to perform risk analytics and their value under current market conditions;
• An assessment of the most important aspects of risk management – not just price risk but including regulatory, operational and credit risk – required by traders under current and future market conditions;
• An assessment of where risk management is headed for commodity and energy trading in the future and its impact on systems vendors and products in the space.
Please contact us for a prospectus.