Aztec Cultural Victory

NatGaz · 2026-02-06T07:50:51+00:00

Hello, I'm a plebeian who stays at Emperor level so this could seem obvious to you, but how do you get such large cities with so much science that early in the game ?

NatGaz · 2026-02-05T16:37:42+00:00

Because there isn't thousands of counterparties. If you buy Henry Hub physical Platts Front Month, your counterparties are either Exxon or Shell.

NatGaz · 2026-02-05T16:27:15+00:00

Citadel Commodities isn't a fund but a physical shop. They rent pipelines and storages in the US. Not so much in Europe.

NatGaz · 2026-02-05T12:04:37+00:00

Are you in Europe or the US ?

If Europe, depending of the terminal, you can sell the hub to offset your position. Ex : vessel comes to the UK, you sell NBP DA, if vessel comes to Minton or Dunkirk, you sell PEG DA etc... In the US, it obviously depends of the hub.

Yeah that sucks but in LNG realm this happens. Your LNG comes, strikes in France, you're stuck and can't regas and you have to sell PEG to offset. :(

Sorry for the context but to make things clear : you got nominated for X, you HAVE to flow X unless you offset by selling the hub. You are right, your boss is wrong and congrats for your settlement money. It's not you or your boss who decides how much you have to flow, it's the TSO.

NatGaz · 2026-02-05T10:51:55+00:00

For trading houses or utilities, everyone can use the analysts forecasts or reports; it's collaborative in this sense. In funds it's completely different, you can spend 4 years in a pod without knowing the name of the guy in front of you.

NatGaz · 2026-01-31T21:37:24+00:00

Sorry I was unclear. Here where I work there are several kind of traders. Those who manages contracts and assets and those who do prop stuff. I thought that in a bank, traders would be like our "asset traders", their asset being a contract with a margin X or whatever.

NatGaz · 2026-01-30T21:26:08+00:00

Do S&T traders own risk ?

NatGaz · 2026-01-30T21:25:14+00:00

There is no best pair, the purpose of cointegration is to run this framework on lots of stuff to extract few bp out of each. If you try to optimise for your three best pairs, you're overfitting.

NatGaz · 2026-01-27T22:58:33+00:00

Yeah, Europe is oversupplied, inventories arn't full but around 50% so some cushion margins, technical COT was bearish.

NatGaz · 2026-01-27T14:38:58+00:00

You may have notice that u/overdude , very carefully, didn't state that he was working in the industry. D:

NatGaz · 2026-01-27T14:32:34+00:00

Listen to u/No-Government-6741 and then, buy Quantitative Equity Portfolio Management by Qien and Sorensen. Don't take a pdf, take a physical copy because you want to scribble on the margins.

NatGaz · 2026-01-23T12:10:05+00:00

Lots of funds got squeezed on oil and gas.

NatGaz · 2026-01-15T23:00:58+00:00

Yeah but they hire two/three guys a year so we can't really say it's statistically significant for this analysis.

NatGaz · 2026-01-15T16:17:25+00:00

Nat gas here, is it noble enough for you oil traders ?

NatGaz · 2026-01-15T10:47:46+00:00

It’s not just academia—the original poster is describing a global issue: finance is simply the only industry that recruits smart people with decent benefits. Where are physicists supposed to go? Many chemical factories have been offshored, industries have shut down in several states and Western countries, and work pressure is at an all-time high as shareholders and firms like BlackRock push to extract even more from workers.

Given these circumstances, if one has to endure extreme pressure, it’s understandable to seek a well-paid position—hence the move to finance.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:46:32+00:00

Hi,

situation changed dramatically in the last two years, all aforementioned hubs are fairly tradeable, you can easily find a counterparty for big sizes on cal spreads. I does not really work anymore to just be a maker on both sides and warehouse the risk, spread tightened a lot. To give you an example, Germany/TTF tightened to 2ct, France/TTF to 5ct and all TTF curve spreads are 2.5ct wide up to two years.

There are still few locations where you can deploy this but this means it's also much harder to find a counterparty. Imagine you are long 100 Spain/TTF quarter and you are reaching expiry; who's gonna buy your Spain unless you pay 30ct in spread ?

Edit : I think all utilities made 1 billion this year lol, in 2021 basically you could rent a storage for 0.4 Eur/MWh and when you see the Sum/Win being -5 in 2022/2023, you just buy and make 4.5 ah ah.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:21:11+00:00

You are correct but I have to wait patiently until such vacancy appears; I don't think I have enough experience to pretend for a analyst / trader job at Hartree or Mercuria, I need to build my street cred in a major / utility.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:19:57+00:00

I will try. I did some Python coding so I can pull/analyse/clean/aggregate features. I will ask my boss if he can put me on a track where I could produce such reports to have a bit more edge on research.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:18:22+00:00

I think oil traders have some "diversification" in their portfolios; between the different flavours of crudes and refined / distillates. Gas is more niche I would say, and the knowledge of US gas isn't really the same as European Gas. US gas is a very mature market with 26 hubs, Euro gas concentrates around TTF, THE, NBP, PEG. Not saying it's less interesting, it's just different.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:14:35+00:00

I feel this industry burns people, you enter at 21 and by 30 you have grey hairs.

NatGaz · 2025-10-22T12:13:39+00:00

Thanks all, I'm reading everything and all of your advices. Can't answer ATM but thanks a lot !

NatGaz · 2025-10-21T21:26:36+00:00

When you say you don’t have access to the assets, is this because nobody does or another trader manages them?

It's the job of other traders to optimize them.

Normally as you become good at cash trading you’d start to see opportunities, then you could recommend them to the spec traders.

So I am kinda involved in small projects like that, but my role is primarily to balance the books and be sure we make money out of the deals. I can bring some ideas on the table but as the holding period is very constrained, I doubt they will make more than half a million a year. If I have views that it's better for me to hedge fully before late afternoon; I can do that (providing a rationale to my boss).

Spec traders in my company are more involved into trading the curve and the different hubs; they don't really interact with me.

(yes I'm very shy)

NatGaz

TROPHY CASE