The CTRM Blog

We’ve just launched our new CommodityPoint website!  Be sure to check out all the new and improved resources at www.Commodity-Point.com

We launched our all new CommodityAlert this week. In addition to articles of interest to the commodity trading and risk management industry, you can also find the latest news, calendar of events and links to current research projects and reports…

If you’re not yet a subscriber to CommodityAlert, you can sign up here.

CommodityPoint‘s CTRM Vendor Perception Survey is nearing its completion and you have but days left to express your thoughts about who’s the leader in CTRM (amongst other thoughts), as we conduct this latest version of our biennial review of the market’s perceptions of trading and risk management applications and their vendors.

So, we would really appreciate hearing your opinions about, and experiences with, the various products and vendors that support energy and commodity trading activities around the globe.  The short electronic survey won’t take you long to complete and the final report will be freely available for you to check how your views match up with others.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas reminds me that we have a long way to go as an industry in terms of innovating the technologies used in CTRM.  While exciting new products and services are unveiled this week at the annual electronics industry get together in Sin City, the energy and commodity trading industry continues to plod down the same weather beaten paths in CTRM technology.  We still use terms like “n-tier” and “straight-thru-processing” as if these are the hottest new technologies to appear in the last year; meanwhile, the consumer markets are continually introduced to innovative new products, services and media that are transformative – changing the way people collect, share and consume information and, arguably even changing the very nature of human interaction.

I had the chance to visit with the University of Houston’s Energy Trading Systems class (aka “MIS 4397 Energy Trading Systems”) a couple of weeks ago.  I wanted to thank Ed Bell, the head instructor for the class and the man whose vision lead to its creation, for the invitation to visit with his students again this semester.  I always enjoy meeting the students and am continually impressed with their knowledge of a very complex industry and their insightful questions.  I also wanted to thank Robert Casey, Associate Dean for the C. T. Bauer College of Business for his participation in the conversation with the class and his gift to me of a Bauer College medallion.