Katie Sullivan of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), sets the stage for a discussion of carbon markets and environmental commodities.

  Lenny Hochschild of Environmental Commodity Partners considers carbon trading from the investor’s perspective: What is actually being bought and sold? What are the characteristics of environmental commodity markets? What should an investor expect of these investments?

  With about 20% of global carbon emissions under carbon pricing, we are witnessing renewed investment opportunities in the environmental commodity space. While this remains a niche market opportunity, there is good reason to believe that trading and investment opportunities in environmental commodities will continue to grow in the years to come. Why do these disparate markets exist? Who are the actors? What are the similarities and differences with other commodity markets?

  As passive strategies continue to gain market share, Thiel Macro’s Michael Green has been considering the implications. In a thought-provoking presentation, Michael builds an interesting thesis, connecting abnormal short-term market behavior with longer term cyclical demographics.

  Many correlate the overall health of the crypto industry with the price of Bitcoin. While prices plummeted across the board in 2018 it has been accompanied by continued development in new and existing projects. Where do we go from here? What is holding the space back from wider adoption? What are the guideposts that need to be seen for broader institutional investment?

Nicolas Girod, Head of Markets at ClearBlue Markets, reviews data on today’s carbon markets and how they came to be.

  The search for alpha requires dealing in unknowns. Some are known unknowns; others we’re completely blind to. To make progress, we simplify, abstract and employ models (mental and/or quantitative), seeking enough evidence and confidence to allocate capital.

  The search for alpha requires dealing in unknowns. Some are known unknowns; others we’re completely blind to. To make progress, we simplify, abstract and employ models (mental and/or quantitative), seeking enough evidence and confidence to allocate capital.

  Even with terabytes stored in servers and observations over multiple decades, there’s actually very little data at our disposal in finance.  Michael gives a fantastic presentation revealing the reasons why financial modeling is so hard—harder even than self-driving cars and diagnosing cancer.

  Ed Rzeszowski (Blackrock) leads a panel exploring a variety of timely questions facing practitioners of quantitative investing strategies.  The panel includes Michael Brandt (QMS Capital Management), Ewan Kirk (GAM Cantab Systematic) and Joshua Coval (Laurel Canyon Partners).