The Matrics system has been developed with the single aim of providing a competitive advantage for customers trading the financial and physical freight market. It has been built from ground up, taking all the special characteristics of the freight market into account. All development cycles have been carried out in close cooperation with major players in the market, and user feed-back has been incorporated at each stage. This ensures that the system supports the work of traders, controllers and other user groups in an efficient and intuitive way, without any unnecessary nonsense.
Matrics is developed and supported by Sigma Systemer AS. Sigma delivers software and consulting for the freight industry. As a small and 100% focused company, we belive that we can give your organization a more cost effective solution — and you a better experience. When you contact Sigma, you will not waste your time trying to explain your business requirements to a technician without the necessary background. You will only talk to highly qualified personell with a deep understanding of market based trading, risk management, and the freight market. If you like, we will be happy to discuss how you can best organize your trading activity and implement your business requirements in Matrics.
We have a clear understanding that your main focus is to run a business, and the trading system is there to help you. You don't want complicated system procedures that will take focus away from your business tasks. We will not push a complex solution on you when we see that a simpler one will do. Our aim is not to give you the most "interesting" technology, but to make your work easier, less error prone, and more fun. We will not be happy unless you are!
Sigma was founded by Kjetil Kåresen in 2005. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied and Industrial Mathematics. During the last decade he has developed risk management systems for markets such as power, oil, gas, and coal. He is now 100% committed to the development and support of the Matrics system.
Matrics was developed in response to a lack of a suitable system for advanced trading organizations in the freight market. In the words of designer Kjetil Kåresen:
- I think the market is dominated by two categories of systems: The first consists of modifications of the traditional “voyage calculators”. These were originally developed for handling physical aspects like distance and fuel calculations, but were never designed for modern market based trading and risk management. The other category is risk management systems that were originally developed for some other commodity market, such oil or power, and have later been adapted to the freight market. With more than 10 years of experience from designing trading and risk management systems for many different markets, I can safely say that a system designed for power, for example, will never be optimal for freight and vice versa. If your business is mainly based in other markets and you also do some freight, you may be OK with a more general system, in particular if you only do financial trades. If your main business is freight, on the other hand, you will be at a serious disadvantage if you use a system that has not been designed specifically for unique characteristics of the freight market. Conversely, you could easily take advantage of the flexibility of the Matrics system and configure it to handle indices and contracts from other markets such as coal, oil, power, etc. However, I would only recommend this if your main business is freight and you also do "something else”.
- The Matrics system incorporates a profound knowledge of the physical characteristics of the freight market, its contract types, trading standards, etc. It is not meant to replace the traditional voyage calculator, but complements it with a full suite of portfolio management, pricing and risk management methodology. The system is conceptually based in standard state-of-the-art pricing and risk management techniques, but models and methods have been further developed to fit the unique characteristics of the freight market. My aim has been to design a system that applies sophisticated mathematical models to give the customer a competitive advantage, but deliver them in a maximally user-friendly way. The feedback during each development cycle from many dedicated and highly resourceful users in my customer’s organizations has been invaluable in achieving this.