Trading, Business & Finance
#8
Six Things Commodity Desks Need to Know This Week
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #8 of The Trading Narrative.
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Essay series
Trading Operations3 essays
A running series on the operational backbone of commodity trading: freight, demurrage, market structure, and the data discipline that separates good desks from great ones.
Read the seriesThe Trading Professional6 essays
A six-part series on building a durable career in commodity trading: future-proofing your skills in an AI-first market, moving from trader to desk head, navigating ETRM vendors, reading the room, and building the reputation and judgment that compound over decades.
Read the series16 essays found
Anish PujariSep 23, 2026 14 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#7
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Six Things Commodity Desks Need to Know This Week
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #6 of The Trading Narrative.
Anish PujariSep 16, 2026 14 min readTrading, Business & Finance
Basis Risk in Commodity Hedging: The Risk Your Hedge Does Not Cover
You hedged, prices moved your way, and you still lost money. That is basis risk. The three kinds every desk carries, how they bite, and what managing them actually looks like.
Anish PujariSep 3, 2026 4 min readTrading, Business & Finance
Contango vs Backwardation: What the Curve Is Actually Telling You
The shape of the forward curve is the market's most honest sentence. What contango and backwardation really mean, how carry trades work, and the roll cost that quietly eats positions.
Anish PujariSep 3, 2026 4 min readTrading, Business & Finance
What Is a Netback? Netback vs Netforward, Explained for Commodity Desks
Netbacks decide where a cargo goes. Here is how desks calculate them, how netforwards differ, and why the arb window your screen shows is rarely the one you can actually capture.
Anish PujariSep 3, 2026 4 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#5
Five Things Commodity Desks Need to Know This Week
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #5 of The Trading Narrative.
Anish PujariSep 2, 2026 14 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#4
Hormuz Rewrites the Freight Book, Copper Prints a Record, and AI Learns to Keep an Audit Trail
Hormuz rewrites the freight book, copper prints a record, ComTech cuts the CTRM forecast, agentic AI arrives with an audit trail, and REMIT II turns enforcement. Edition #4 of The Trading Narrative, in 5 minutes.
Anish PujariAug 26, 2026 10 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#3
Hormuz Stays Shut, OPEC+ Runs Out of Barrels, and the CFTC Questions the Trading Day
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #3 of The Trading Narrative.
Anish PujariAug 18, 2026 10 min readTrading, Business & Finance
What Does TC/RC Mean in Metals Trading? Treatment and Refining Charges Explained
TC/RC stands for treatment and refining charges: the fees a smelter charges a miner to convert concentrate into refined metal. Why the benchmark moves, what negative TC/RCs mean, and why trading systems get the sign flip wrong.
Anish PujariAug 14, 2026 3 min readTrading, Business & Finance
What Is Laytime in Shipping? The Clock That Decides Demurrage
Laytime is the amount of time a charterparty allows for loading or discharging cargo before demurrage starts to accrue. How the clock starts, what pauses it, and why the wording of a laytime clause decides more P&L than most desks realise.
Anish PujariAug 14, 2026 3 min readTrading, Business & Finance
What Is Demurrage vs Detention? A Plain-English Guide for Commodity Traders
Demurrage is charged when cargo occupies a vessel or terminal beyond the agreed free time; detention is charged when equipment is held outside the terminal past its return date. What each one costs, why the invoices are so often wrong, and how desks reduce both.
Anish PujariAug 14, 2026 3 min readTrading, Business & Finance
ETRM vs CTRM: What's the Difference, and Which One Do You Actually Need?
ETRM software manages energy trading across power, gas, and oil, while CTRM covers the full physical commodity lifecycle including metals, agriculture, and freight. A plain-English comparison from twelve years of delivering both, with a practical checklist for choosing.
Anish PujariAug 14, 2026 4 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#2
Oil's Sharp Slide, OPEC+ Completes the Rollback, and Smelters Paying Miners
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #2 of The Trading Narrative.
Anish PujariAug 10, 2026 7 min readTrading, Business & Finance
The Shipping Industry Is Sitting on a $15 Billion Problem. And Nobody Is Talking About It Honestly.
Demurrage is not an operational inconvenience, it is a systemic failure of data. The industry loses up to $15 billion a year to a problem that lives in inboxes and spreadsheets.
Anish PujariAug 7, 2026 7 min readTech & AI
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Freight Management and Tracking Visibility: How Digital Platforms and AI Are Rewriting the Rules of Commodity Logistics
Why $15 billion in annual demurrage is a data problem, and how AIS, AI, and integrated CTRM are finally solving it.
Anish PujariAug 7, 2026 8 min readTrading, Business & Finance
#1
Five Things Commodity Desks Need to Know This Week
Your Wednesday briefing on trading technology, markets, risk and regulation, in 5 minutes. Edition #1 of The Trading Narrative.
Anish PujariAug 7, 2026 3 min read