Can someone please point me to any leads to previous posts or elsewhere or write up some information on the long term quant career pros and cons in finance vs energy sector. Is there a big difference in opportunities, skills and income between energy and the petroleum sector. Which areas have skills shortage factoring in the current and future economic developments and forecasts.cheers...

SIAM News June 2006 has article 'Energy Trading' that talks about the need for quants and investment banks looking for MS/PhD for energy products.

it's kind of funny. you read everywhere that the market is good, quants are needed etc. but how does one know where the jobs are, i.e. who is looking to hire? even some managers i talked to mention how hard it is to find good candidates. but at the same time, little effort is put into organizing a streamlined hiring process. QuoteOriginally posted by: jfuquaSIAM News June 2006 has article 'Energy Trading' that talks about the need for quants and investment banks looking for MS/PhD for energy products.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tmaisnamCan someone please point me to any leads to previous posts or elsewhere or write up some information on the long term quant career pros and cons in finance vs energy sector. Is there a big difference in opportunities, skills and income between energy and the petroleum sector. Which areas have skills shortage factoring in the current and future economic developments and forecasts.cheers...tmaisnam - I'll try and give you an insight into quant work in the energy sector, and will leave it up to others to describe non-energy quant work...The energy markets are now in their third phase. In quant terms, the first phase was the "physical phase", when trading was about finding near-arbitrage conditions and exploiting them. This meant buying gas in one place, paying for transportation, and selling it in another. When done correctly it was a low risk way to make money. This ended in the mid 90's.The second phase was the "Enron phase". Virtual power stations, exotic structures and market making. Lots of fun, lots of money to be made (and lost), and brought to an end by the credit crunch. During this phase quants started to get hired, and some even wrote a few books. Very exciting times to be a quant, because so many new methods were being tried and tested. This phase also saw the birth of the off-the-shelf software that was meant to provide some certainty to traders. Fortunately the software was so bad, and the target so fast moving, that no externally developed models could possibly hope to keep up with a good quant team. Suddenly, having a Ph.D. was seen as a benefit...We are now in the "Vanilla phase". Because credit killed so many businesses, we have seen a massive shift towards cleared products, traded on exchanges. This has made life as a quant both easier and more difficult. The market is finally providing some transparency, but it is harder to trade structured products. Thus, the easy money from replicating portfolios is gone. A good trader is worth a lot more than a good quant today, in my humble opinion.I can see the current phase coming to an end soon, so to identify if now is a good time to become an energy quant, we need to guess what phase four will look like. I'm guessing it will be the "Portfolio Phase". This will be the most exciting time to be a quant. The guys who can work out how to most efficiently combine a portfolio of debt, equity, commodities and physical assets will make an absolute killing. Finding the efficient frontier with all these investments - well, let's just say I would pay somebody a LOT of money who could do this.As a starting point, I would just try and find work on ANY desk in a good energy or commodities trading shop. Don't worry too much about moving into the area where there is a perceived shortage of skills - it is much easier to identify these opportunities from the inside than the outside.Best of luck.EQ

Well, here is an advertised position for MS & PhD types posted in a non-traditional fashion. Seems ideal for beginners:http://tiptop.iop.org/index.cfm?action= ... Originally posted by: needaclueit's kind of funny. you read everywhere that the market is good, quants are needed etc. but how does one know where the jobs are, i.e. who is looking to hire? even some managers i talked to mention how hard it is to find good candidates. but at the same time, little effort is put into organizing a streamlined hiring process. QuoteOriginally posted by: jfuquaSIAM News June 2006 has article 'Energy Trading' that talks about the need for quants and investment banks looking for MS/PhD for energy products.

EnergyQuant:That's a very interesting recap of the development of Energy markets. In light of what you have said (the consolidation of exchange-based trading and clearing to eliminate counterparty risk), how do you see the initiatives of NYMEX and ICE, ClearPort and ICE OTC, to be exact? Are they a step on the right direction or do you see them as trying to please both extremes, the OTC traders and advocates of clearing?Do you see venues like ClearPort (or GLOBEX, now that ClearPort will disappear) offering more custom-made contracts besides the swap futures that we already see?Thanks so much for your comments.

Hi Monica - I think OTC traders ARE the advocates of clearing. While it may take a while to get through the thick heads of some of the biggest utilities, there is a lot of value in migrating towards liquidity. It just adds to much risk to a portfolio to only deal with one or two counterparties, particularly when they know your position. What happens if the "relationship" becomes less client-serving and more "you lose, I win"?Thus, developing new products for clearing OTC trades (including tear-ups) is a growing business because it is NEEDED by a lot of people in the market. There is also a strong desire from the financial side of the market to allow greater access to physical, without risking barrels of oil being delivered onto the trading floor.EQ