Hedge funds are private investment funds charging a performance fee and typically open to only a limited range of qualified investors. In the
Speculative energy trading has a strong future, but it will not be the traditional utilities and energy merchants that will create and maturate that market. While much of the energy industry has returned to the relative safety of trading around assets and marketing activities, energy markets have become characterized across all energy commodities by increasing prices and price volatilities. Oil markets are booming and were not at all impacted by the Enron collapse.
Energy trading will now be dominated by more sophisticated and well-capitalized financial players such as hedge funds and investment banks, as well as by multinational energy companies with a global footprint, while electric utilities are more marginalized to niche markets. Evidence of the fund?s influence on oil markets has been the 55% growth in open interest on Nymex crude, heating oil and gasoline contracts over last year and the more violent and volatile intraday trading moving during recent months. These market drivers are bringing greater financialization and maturation to the energy complex.
According to research, it can be established that there are over two hundred known hedge funds active in the energy sector with many more information. To put this in some context, there are more than 8,100 hedge funds globally managing over $1 trillion in assets today. Energy is still a relatively small but rapidly growing component of their universe. There are many factors responsible for this change in hedge fund strategy. For one thing, traditional equity returns this year have been flat so that many funds are not making the kinds of returns expected for this type of investment.
SOURCE: Energy Business Reports
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