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“It’s as if the regulator has scant regard for tradition”
“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land, Ofgem kept market rules firmly in hand…”
It’s true: Christmas Eve will be a little less jolly for the UK electricity market this year, because Ofgem has turned Grinch by insisting that its mandatory liquidity windows must still take place on 24 December.
The windows – through which the biggest of the UK’s power market are required to trade twice a day, every working day – have proved divisive at the best of times. But when Ofgem confirmed earlier this year that Christmas would be no different, market reporters at Icis jumped at the chance to report the market’s discontent at not being able to knock off at lunch time. It’s almost as if the regulator has scant regard for Christmas tradition.
Granted, with the second market window closing at 16.30 you probably couldn’t argue that Ofgem is the regulator that stole Christmas. Not the whole thing anyway. But if you’re the guy who drew the short straw this year, that 16.30 close will find a way of creeping into the rest of the evening as the post-close “procedural stuff” mounts.
And it’s not just the traders. Icis may well have flagged up Ofgem’s unpopular decision with similar levels of outrage in their hearts. For price reporters, a lot of the real work of the day happens after trading ends and the deluge of market data used to support closing prices assessments floods in.
Someone’s not getting a Christmas card this year.
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