Energy Risk Unpacked with Steve Sinos: Hedging Energy's Volatility

ory dives deep into energy risk management with industry veteran Steve Sinos. Steve, with over 20 years of experience, explains how energy derivatives—from Futures and Options to CFDs—are crucial risk management tools designed to shift, not destroy, market risk. The episode frames this through the practical scenario of advising a regional airline on hedging its largest cost: fuel price exposure. Steve details the non-mechanical, iterative process of understanding controllable versus unknowable factors, emphasizing that effective risk management forces explicit trade-offs to achieve strategic goals. The discussion covers the diverse hedging approaches of airlines and E&P companies, focusing on product selection, instrument choice, and the critical challenge of basis risk. He shares insights on managing for quantifiable success over predicting "black swan" events, and the shift towards optimizing the "efficiency of a risk dollar" for specific cash flow targets. Listeners will also learn about interpreting complex market data like Commitment of Traders (COT) reports to avoid speculative biases and navigating unique market structures, such as the current "smiley curve" in crude futures. This episode underscores the risk manager's role as a "therapist," helping strategic leaders make informed decisions by understanding the sacrifices required to meet their objectives