Commodities Quant Night London: infrastructure, data, and what’s next

On June 18, 2025, we co-hosted an evening of quant-focused discussion with Energy Aspects at their Canary Wharf office, joined by speakers from DRW, Schonfeld, and Databento. The event brought together professionals from across the commodities trading industry to discuss the tools, data, and challenges shaping quant research and execution today.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the panel and stayed for drinks, canapés, and conversation. Below are some highlights from the evening.

Panelists: Christina Qi (moderator, Databento), Nicky Ferguson (Energy Aspects), Hayn Park (DRW), and William Dorsey (Schonfeld)

The panel opened with a discussion on how technology and analytics platforms in quant commodities trading have changed over the past few years. Panelists spoke about the scope and frequency of datasets they rely on today, how alternative data is being incorporated, and whether machine learning and LLMs have found a place in their workflows.

Questions also touched on:

• Best practices for regression modeling.
• How AI is affecting their firms' workflows.
• Emerging trends in the quantitative commodities space.
• Innovations on the horizon that could disrupt how firms trade or research commodities.
• How their firms are positioning themselves to take advantage of these changes.

We’re grateful to Energy Aspects for hosting us at their Canary Wharf office and to all our speakers for contributing to a thoughtful and technical discussion.