In business, economy of scale is an important concept of optimizing output while reducing cost per unit of output by increasing the size of production. For example, a larger entity would be more cost efficient per unit of production than a smaller unit, all other factors being equal. But, passing the optimum size brings in […]
This is the Part Two of Three in our series on the NYISO market. In the Part One, titled ‘The Need for Enterprise Data Management in the NYISO’, Ian gave an operational overview of NYISO as an independent system operator. In today’s blog, we’ll take a look at different products and reports available in NYISO […]
The debt ceiling crisis has an inconspicuous victim, the U.S. bond market. The simple logic is that a U.S. Treasury default on its bonds will cause the bond investors to panic, causing both long and short term interest rates to spike. The U.S. Treasury bond holders will bear the brunt but the default would also […]
Most oil companies have a dedicated team exploring new sources of energy, be it offshore crude, natural gas or any unconventional source. But, the inundating supply of crude from the Alberta oil sands and shale in the U.S. has redefined the scope and financial viability of offshore crude exploration. The official proven crude oil reserve […]
Technical glitches on trading exchanges have become a reality for the contemporary financial world. “As we continue to eliminate human beings from the execution of security trading, this is the problem you run into,” said Stephen Massocca, managing director of Wedbush Equity Management LLC in San Francisco. “These events are going to take place, given […]
A common challenge experienced by many market participants is the effort it takes to manage different contract lengths for the same commodity when building forward curves. Forward curves, a series of sequential prices either for future delivery of an asset or expected future settlements of an index (Platts), trade on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly […]
If you pay for your electricity, why should you also have to pay for the cost of running the power plant that generates it? This may be the question on the minds of many household consumers who typically are concerned with uninterrupted power supply with minimum monthly electricity bills. However, the efficiency and productivity of […]
The world’s first virtual currency Bitcoin has had its ups and downs while trying to find its place amongst mainstream exchange-traded financial instruments. Although the Bitcoin market has always been turbulent, the recent decline in its value against real currencies reflects the negative market sentiment. The USD price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high of […]
Financial markets went into a tizzy over Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s statement at the rate-setting panel press conference on June 19, 2013, “If the incoming data support the view that the economy is able to sustain a reasonable cruising speed, we will ease the pressure on the accelerator by gradually reducing the pace of […]
Back in the nineties Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was typically the confine of regional, illiquid markets. During that period, LNG was traded between eight exporting countries and eight importing countries, with only 70 vessels in operation. Due to its meager trade volume and illiquidity, LNG contracts had fixed prices and were indexed to oil prices. […]