Stable modeling in energy risk management

High price volatility in energy markets compels the companies to adopt and implement policies for measurement and management of the energy risk. A popular measure of risk exposure is the Value at Risk (VaR). Traditional methods of estimation of VaR used by major energy companies fail to capture the heavy tails and asymmetry of energy returns distributions. We suggest the use of stable distributions for modeling energy return distributions. The results of our study demonstrate that stable modeling captures asymmetry and heavy-tails of returns, and, therefore, provides more accurate estimates of energy VaR. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002