This year promises to be another nearly impossible one to forecast. We not only have the usual uncertainties about shifts in demand and supply cycles, but we also have to deal with entire trend and regime shifts. Think for instance about Russia’s aggression and EU embargoes forcing wholesale change to global energy trade flows, or a less responsive US supply side, or a suddenly accelerating (or is it decelerating) energy transition. And there are profound questions to answer. How much less oil will be traded against Brent and WTI benchmarks and will that sustain historic volatility? Will there be peace in eastern Europe again, and is that bullish or bearish?
Please join us in this session as our board member and global energy strategist at Piper Sandler, Jan Stuart, will explore these questions with a great line-up of panelists. Better yet, we will host this session “live and in person” as well as virtually via zoom webinar.
We also ask you to participate in our annual price-outlook survey. Please submit your price estimates here. See link for our 2022 survey results.
SPEAKERS
Ashkan Ziabakhshdeylami
Ash Zia is an experienced oil trader and portfolio manager with a consistent PNL track record in both a bank and hedge fund seat. As an early joiner of Trailstone in 2014, he helped with the buildout of the Oil desk. He manages the liquids portfolio by deploying multi strategy risk around prop ideas in directional, relative value, and volatility space stemming from data driven fundamentals and systematic approaches.
Recently Mr. Zia has been promoted to Junior CIO and tasked with managing the energy traders within the hedge fund business of Trailstone, including oil, gas, and electricity in both US and Europe.
Prior to joining Trailstone Mr. Zia was an Option Trader on the oil desk at Deutsche Bank in New York. Before that, he was head trader of Simon Fraser University's SIAS Endowment Fund where he was responsible for management and execution of trades for a multi asset portfolio.
Mr. Zia graduated from the honors program at Simon Fraser University with a B.S. degree in Electronics Engineering and a M.Sc. in Quantitative Finance.
Francisco Blanch
Francisco Blanch is a managing director and head of Global Commodities and Derivatives Research at BofA Global Research. Previously, he was head of Global Asset Allocation Research. Blanch is also a member of the research investment and operating management committees.
In 2005, Blanch joined Merrill Lynch in London. He developed the ICE Merrill Lynch Commodity Index eXtra (MLCX) and 500+ related investable strategies in asset classes as diverse as commodities, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange. Research produced by the Commodities, Asset Allocation and Global Derivatives teams has been recognized by Institutional Investor, Extel, Greenwich, Bloomberg, and Energy Risk, among others. Blanch appears regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and CNN, and his research has been publicized in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times and Washington Post.
Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Blanch was an energy economist focusing on global oil and gas in the commodity research group at Goldman Sachs & Co. He also consulted for the European Commission. Blanch received his doctorate in economics from Complutense University of Madrid and a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a teaching fellow in financial markets. He also completed graduate work in economics at the University of California at Berkeley and was a Korea Foundation fellow at Seoul National University.
Michelle Brouhard
Michelle Brouhard is an oil trader at Hartree Partners. Her investing expertise focuses on commodities such as oil, natural gas, metals and agriculture. She also has experience in investing in equities, FX and credit, based on a commodity point of view. Before Hartree, Michelle traded oil and other commodities with TrailStone Group (2016 – 2018); earlier, Michelle was a Portfolio Manager with PointState Capital, where she capitalized on the oil price crash of 2014.
Michelle has been named to the Hedge Fund Journal / Ernst & Young’s “50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds” for 2019. She also serves on the board of Hope for New York, is the co-founder of Refugee Action Fund and is on the National Leadership Council for World Vision. She is also a children’s leader at Bible Study Fellowship.
Michelle has a degree in Marketing and International studies from Kansas State University. In her spare time she participates in adventure races and marathons including a 250 km ultra marathon through Iceland and rim to rim hiking through the Grand Canyon.
MODERATOR
Jan Stuart
Johannes (Jan) Stuart serves as global energy strategist at Piper Sandler. A self-described oil-geek, Stuart and his team take a micro-fundamentals approach to energy analysis and forecasting - which frequently lands them away from consensus. Previously, Jan spent 11 years in sell-side research, building leading energy-macro franchises at Credit Suisse, Macquarie and UBS. He was a journalist for much of the nineties and started his career at the International Energy Agency in Paris. Mr. Stuart earned a BA in International Affairs from the American University in Paris; an MA in the same field from Boston University; and an MSc in Journalism from Columbia University in New York.
PROGRAM
5:30 - 6:00 PM: Registration
6:00 - 7:30 PM: Presentation and Discussion
7:30 - 8:00 PM: Reception
COST
Registration is required for all attendees. This session is complimentary for virtual attendees via zoom webinar. An admission fee is required for in-person attendees as listed below:
$40.00 for General Admission
$10.00 for Academic/Military
$0.00 for Energy Forum Sponsors
$0.00 for Paid Subscribers
QUESTIONS
We would be pleased to answer any questions you might have about The Energy Forum, Inc. or about this session. For updates, follow us on twitter @NYEnergyForum