The first UtiliPoint European Executive Conference in Prague was a terrific success. The event was well planned, well attended, and well presented. I have to extend my congratulations to Nannette Schervone, our events planner, and Gary Vasey, our General Manager of Europe, for their efforts in creating a great event.

Not only did Gary assist in planning and driving attendance, he also gave two terrific presentations, one on UtiliPoint’s key research in the European marketplace and the other on the emerging trends in energy trading. It was this last presentation that was for many a real highlight of the conference. Gary spoke to the movement away from trading energy commodities in isolation by the traditional players, that is energy producers, distributors, utilities, and energy centric traders. Today’s market dynamics demonstrate that energy commodities are being held by banks, hedge funds and trading firms that have historically managed currencies, metals, and ag commodities. Additionally energy commodities are now being treated as a part of a broad commodity portfolio that will interact with the equity and debt markets. As Gary pointed out, treating energy commodities as merely an asset on par with the traditional financial instruments will, and already has, changed the dynamics of price and volatility for gas, crude, coal, and petroleum products. The most recent example of this dynamic was the selloff of energy commodities recently when many of the trading houses were forced to sell “in the money” positions in order to cover losses on their debt instruments. For the smaller energy-only trading firms, understanding these new dynamics is going to be vitally important as the markets continue to exhibit behaviors that cannot be explained by the traditional drivers of energy supply and demand.

With this having been my first visit to Prague, I was more than impressed by the city. In my mind Prague ranks with Paris as the most beautiful cities that I’ve visited. In fact, though Prague lacks the Eiffel Tower, it more than makes up for it with a welcoming attitude and much more comfortable ambiance. For that, I’m giving my nod to Prague as the city I’d most like to revisit in the future. For Americans surrounded by disposable buildings and mega freeways, it’s a great experience to wonder the narrow streets of a city that was emerging as a center of commerce for the European continent in the 1400’s. Fortunately, the old city escaped most of the ravages of WWII, emerging essentially unscathed. Having escaped communism less than 20 years ago, the city is now an interesting blend of old architecture and new neon pointing the way to world class shopping and the touchstones of free commerce - “cabarets” advertising that you can either “fall in love” or you can take a trip to the “Gates of Hell”. Although, and I am not speaking from personal experience, I suppose the two outcomes don’t have to be mutually exclusive.