Energy trading firms may rue the decline of quants

New areas for quant research are in abundance, but resources are not

Had it not been for the development of techniques such as value-at-risk and Black-Scholes options pricing, the energy market would be a very different place indeed. During recent decades, the methods, tools and approaches of quantitative finance – as practised by quantitative analysts or ‘quants' – have produced effective ways of measuring and managing risk for energy firms. Despite this, the popularity of these models has fallen since the financial crisis, curtailing investment in the