Handbook of Multi-Commodity Markets and Products: Structuring, Trading and Risk Management

Preface

Commodity markets have traditionally developed along paths leaving them structurally independent from each other. In the last thirty years, several markets have undergone a process of deregulation and liberalisation, turning the corresponding goods into tradable commodities. This is the case, for instance, with energy markets, such as oil, gas and, more recently, electricity. As a result, both the amount of traded products and the degree of heterogeneity among products in the market has grown.

According to major market players, the next ongoing step in market evolution is underway. It is a process of integration across markets of different types, such as energy, agricultural, metals, and standardised services. This shift raises important questions which merit attention by financial literature; questions about the identification and analysis of actual opportunities carried over by financial deals involving several commodities. To cite but a few:

• How, in terms of profit-making or risk management, can we exploit pay-off profiles and trading strategies by betting on the evolution of a diversified set of commodity prices?
• How should we price energy products and other commodities belonging to markets segmented across specific structural features (e.g., storable vs. non-storable, material vs. immaterial)?
• Which methods and models should we develop or select to make appropriate estimations of the future evolution of prices, specifically in terms of trend and market risk?