Vince Kaminski
Insights from Vince Kaminski
Market veteran Vince Kaminski discusses the biggest risks to energy firms today and whether risk teams can ever prove their value
Risk managers: beware conventional 'wisdom'
Why the consensus view so often fails to predict seismic shocks
Winds of change will continue to roar for energy markets
Ten years ago, economists were sanguine amid the ‘great moderation' and the energy industry was fretting about peaking worldwide oil supplies. There is no predicting the future, writes energy market veteran Vincent Kaminski, but it is sure to be a leap…
Is the financialisation of commodities being reversed?
In the past 30 years, a process of financialisation has drastically reshaped the energy and commodity sector. Now, it appears the level of diminishing marginal returns has been reached and that process is shifting into reverse, says energy market veteran…
Video: Enron 'best' and 'lowest' career moment, says Kaminski
Vincent Kaminski opines on topics including the "best" and "lowest" moment of his career, financial regulation, oil fundamentals and European energy markets in a wide-ranging interview filmed at Energy Risk Summit USA
Economists, like hedge fund traders, need open minds
Failing to spot an emerging crisis may be forgivable, but not learning its lessons and failing to recognise its root causes are far more serious errors. A rapidly changing world needs economists, risk managers and traders with open minds, argues energy…
Energy scarcity warrants tough response to market abuse
Market manipulation is a problem that is controversial and tricky to define, but it must be taken seriously. That is particularly true in energy markets, where the optimal allocation of resources is more important than ever, argues industry veteran…
Practitioners must take risk measures with a pinch of salt
While useful, it is possible to rely too heavily on conventional risk measures such as volatility and value-at-risk – a point made recently by billionaire US investor Warren Buffett. Every aspiring practitioner should know about their drawbacks, writes…
Oil prices collapse: assessing the ‘known unknowns’
Predicting the future for oil prices is a losing game due to the complexity of the market. But some pieces of critical information are often widely missed, argues Vincent Kaminski, including several potential risks to firms associated with North American…
Energy traders ignore legal risk at their peril
Legal risk is a challenge for energy trading organisations, as it eludes traditional quantitative risk management techniques. But its effects can be just as disastrous as other risk management failures, and sometimes worse, warns Vincent Kaminski
Market manipulation won’t be stopped by Socrates or Spinoza
Despite all the headlines about market manipulation, business school ethics classes are not the answer, writes Vincent Kaminski. Instead, it must be emphasised that graduates have much to lose and little to gain from engaging in market abuse
Energy markets need more than second-hand credit models
In the energy markets, models transplanted from financial markets often fall down when it comes to credit risk. This occurs for a variety of reasons, not least because energy markets are prone to seismic institutional and technological shifts, argues…
Energy Risk 20th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Awards
To mark 20 years since its launch in 1994, Energy Risk is honouring 20 individuals who have made a tangible contribution to the development of commodity trading and risk management
Ethics and moral standards are as crucial to finance as ever
Despite the twists and turns of history, some things remain the same – an important lesson that can be found in the work of Émile Zola. His novel L’Argent shows how an erosion of moral standards can be lethal to individuals, the institutions they run,…
TXU bankruptcy holds lessons for risk managers
The bankruptcy of Energy Future Holdings – formerly known as TXU – should act as a warning to risk managers, who must be alert to excessive self-confidence and a failure to deal with unpleasant or inconvenient facts, argues Vincent Kaminski
Energy Risk marks 20 years of covering energy markets
Energy Risk was first published back in February 1994. Since then, its fortunes have risen and fallen with those of the wider energy risk management industry. Mark Pengelly reflects on the highs and lows of the first 20 years
Risk managers should learn from the mistakes of others
Doing enough detective work to discover whether companies are really rotten to the core may be challenging for busy risk managers. But bad eggs usually come with early warning signs, which are easier to spot, writes Vincent Kaminski
Resist the rise of the risk management machines
Overreliance on modern risk management systems, and metrics such as value-at-risk, can blind firms to tectonic structural market shifts. To help alleviate this problem, the use of human judgement and intervention is required, argues Vincent Kaminski
Risk management should be more than just a decoration
Despite massive investment in human capital and technical resources, risk managers failed to warn about the dangers of toxic assets and excessive leverage in the run-up to the global financial crisis. Their lack of authority is partly to blame, writes…
An anatomy of financial and energy market bubbles
Despite differences in the detail, the mechanics that unfold during episodes of financial and energy market hype are the same. To avoid repeating the errors of the past, companies and individuals should bear them in mind, argues Vincent Kaminski
Book extract: Energy Markets by Vince Kaminski
Vincent Kaminski’s new book Energy Markets, published by Incisive Media, will be released on January 18 and is now available for pre-order. Below is an edited extract of the author’s introduction in which he explains the content and philosophy of the…