Vito Turitto Reading The Pulse Of Prices

Most people glance at a price and move on. Vito Turito looks at that same number and sees a heartbeat: volatility, risk, and the hidden story of how markets actually feel. From our shared days around energy benchmarks to his work as a quant strategist and published researcher, Vito breaks down why the “vibration” around price often matters more than the price level itself.

We get practical about what it takes to turn modern market data into decisions you can stand behind. There’s no shortage of information in crude oil, diesel, LNG, freight rates and derivatives, but there is a shortage of interpretation. We talk about statistics, econometrics, options implied volatility and why volatility is both threat and opportunity for commodity trading, hedging strategies and real-world risk management.

We also tackle AI in finance head-on: what machine learning is great at, what large language models cannot do without training, and why paywalls and intellectual property make a fully open “all-knowing” model unlikely. Vito shares a more realistic future: internal analytics, private agents, and humans staying responsible for the “why” when things go wrong.

If energy and shipping markets feel more chaotic than ever, this is a clear guide to thinking about uncertainty with sharper tools and stronger discipline. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who lives with price risk, and leave a review with your biggest question about volatility.

Transcript

A Different Kind Of Meal

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Okay, so today we're serving up something a little bit more complicated than our usual fair. Think of it more like uh Hyderabadi Briani as opposed to a British Bengali chicken tigamasala, right? Um you'll understand the metaphor once we get into it. Most people look at a price tag and see a number. My guest today looks at a price tag and sees a pulse. Now I first met him when we were both doing very, very different things. Um, but we were both at SP Global Platts. Um, depending upon the orientation of the office, either I was sitting behind him or he was sitting behind me. And as is my habit, uh, I got very, very interested and wanted to figure out what is it that this wonderful man was actually doing, right? Um, so we were both knee deep in the world of energy benchmarks and physical oil. Uh and since then I think it's fair to say that he's moved from the why what to the why. So Vito, Vito Torito. Did I say your name correctly, sir?

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Yes, you did. And um uh thank you for having me uh on the show. Uh it's a great opportunity for me. It's been uh I mean uh I'm I had to uh uh I had the opportunity to um to listen to some of the previous podcasts and this uh and your work has been great so far. So thank you for having me. You're very kind, sir, very, very, very kind.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Let's get started

Price Versus Volatility

SPEAKER_00 1:57

then. So before we get into the he the heavy mathematics, I guess, right? When we were at, you know, Platz doing what we were doing, right? Um, and you were more focused on the now, the physical cargo, the daily assessments, the the real barrels, as they say. Um at what point or had you already realized that the real story wasn't just the price itself, but the vibration or the volatility around the price?

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Have I framed that question?

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Okay, yes, absolutely. Um crystal clear. Um it's actually it's actually a very good question.

Finding Meaning In Too Much Data

SPEAKER_03 2:40

So when I was uh at Platz, and we're talking about a period that it's a few years ago now, um I was dealing with all the price assessments, and I was an analyst there, I was a quant analyst there. So my job was to extract the meaning, you know, out of those data using uh statistics, econometrics, financial mathematics, and um uh uh machine learning, of course. And at that point, what I realized is that we have a wealth of information, okay? And that wealth of information is massive. We are in an age right now which is called um um information intensification era. This is some of the people how they call it, because with all the um uh uh the technology that we have now available, we are tracking a number of things that were untrackable, you know, even five or ten years ago. Well and the amount of data that we are producing right now is absolutely massive. We have a lot of data right now. The problem is, and this is something that already experienced while I was at Platz at the time, why while I was talking to the clients over there, it's not really the data. Because at the moment, data you can find that. The problem is how to squeeze the juice out of them. It's the meaning that you have out of data. And this is true for almost everything. It's not just finance, of course, which is my sector. It's not just quant finance, which is my sector, but it's it's something that you have everywhere. Like I talked to technologists that um uh work, like for instance, uh uh I was having a discussion with uh some uh bioengineers, for instance, and they told me the exact same thing. We have a lot of data right now, like even you know, medical history of a patient or something. The problem is how you put that to good use. What because it's not just the algorithms, it's not just the AI that matters, okay, but it's in the interpretation that you give as a professional of this um uh of this data. So what you squeeze out of the of the in uh uh of the time series needs to be interpreted. You need to understand what is the um the conclusion, you know, because at the end of the day, that's what we want, like in business, where the market is going, if oil is gonna go higher or lower, what is the implication for the clients on the other side? Okay, and the same goes for um gas, the same goes for diesel, the same goes for um other markets like renewables right now. We are still, they are still in their infancy at the moment, but you know, they're developing, they are getting bigger and bigger, and it's gonna be the same, the exact same process after all. And that is the moment where I realize that you know we really need to focus on, you know, why rather than just what. We need to go one step further, because otherwise, we are not gonna get the entire picture. And that's and my previous experience when I was um uh uh when I was like on the in the edge fund industry taught me, you know, to go beyond certain things, and I started to look at um the volatility. At the end of the day, you know, the market is volatile, it's gonna move all the time. How many times have you read, like, oh, the market is very volatile today, the market is moving, it's everywhere, okay? Volatility is risk, but it's also opportunity. So at the point, I realized that okay, this is probably the stuff that I need to focus on. And and there was a moment where everything changed. And I uh I actually never looked back since.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

That's for me, right? Um totally uh expected, and uh, but thank you for demonstrating um your passion, right? The way that you just have done. Um, because I think that is a massive differentiator between folks who really get under the hood of what the data is and and how to actually utilize it. I mean, it's it's no surprise. You're a featured researcher for the JP Morgan Center of Commodities. Have I got that right?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yes, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Uh that's huge. That is huge.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

I had the this opportunity to uh to do some research with them, and actually um uh they have been very kind to um to publish the research. They they helped me a lot also in the publication um uh uh process. And you know, I published something again about volatility as well over there. And um I I touched a number of markets there, like uh, but predominantly was gravitating around what my expertise is, which is of course the energy sector. So crude oil, uh like Brent, like WTI, but also products like diesel, for instance. That diesel it runs actually the world, which is precisely why at the moment, you know, there is so much uh with the with the geopolitical environment we're living in, you know, it's so important to understand also what's going on in their market. And you know, they they helped me in the publication and they said, we would like to have something like this on our paper, like on our journal. Would you uh are you up for it? And I said, well, yeah. I mean, if you are, if you if you are okay with it, you know, I'm more than willing to do so. And um, it's also because I'm very passionate about this topic. Volatility is something that I've been doing for quite a while. At the beginning, I was an option trader and I was a volatility trader actually, using options on uh on crude oil. So uh I always add uh um uh that was the topic of my master's degrees. Um uh like both the first master's degree and the second master's degree, both they deal with volatility. So one with energy, the other one is shipping. Uh so uh it's it's uh it's very passionate. When, and I don't know, like when you are passionate about something, you want to talk about this, you know, to someone, even to the point where somehow you can become a little bit annoying at that point. We said, okay, fine. I I I over talked, it's fine. I'm gonna I'm gonna be quiet. And but you know, that's what keeps you running. Is the human curiosity at the end of the day that you know is the is the driver behind everything that we do.

AI Tools And Human Judgement

SPEAKER_00 9:20

I mean, based based on I completely enoughly agree with you, obviously. Um based on a response, I guess, from from the uh the first question, do you still advocate that the role of the human, right, is still incredibly important because that interpretation of data that you alluded to, right? So maybe, maybe some folks are thinking, well, hmm, this isn't a space for larger language models, right? Maybe once the agentic models get more mature, then they might be able to do the interpretation. Well, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 10:09

So this is a complex um uh question, but the thing is if you look at the AI, I've been using AI for quite a while. Being a quant analyst and now a quant strategist, I've been using artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning in particular for quite a while. And um, they are a great fantastic tool because it they allow you to extract meaning and patterns out of data um uh in a way that um is much more sophisticated than other than than than regular or traditional algorithms, if you want. However, what I notice is this the AI, the agentic AI, you need to understand always that LLM needs to be trained on something. Otherwise, you know, they they don't speed out anything. When you go, for instance, like use all the packages that are out there, okay, these packages like uh Anthropic or it can be Gemini, you know, all the packages, whatever is the Chat GPT, whatever is the software that you're using, these software has been trained on something else. So all the responses that you get to all the questions that you that you ask actually have been already answered by somebody else. Without training, these LLM models are completely useless. An LLM model is a probabilistic model, and okay, and it gives you the most probable answer to the question you're actually trying to provide. Okay, this is like a in a ball, this is a ballpark definition, of course, of an LLM. The truth is, however, that even though at the moment we don't have the kind of sophistication that allows us to focus on the percent on just on the agents providing the answer, okay, in the future, this might be the well the case. You know, we we may reach a future where basically, you know, they will they will do the interpretation. The problem is, and again, I'm talking about my market because I don't know, I don't have experience in other markets, but sure when it comes to energy or shipping, which something that I I'm a corner store basically between more on the financial side, so more on financial energy, so financial prices when it comes to options in futures, when it comes to crude oil and diesel, and on the financial side of shipping, so the freight rates, for instance, okay? The the thing that puts everything together for me is volatility, okay, because that's the lens I use, you know, to to um uh to um uh analyze the market. But when you look at all these markets together, there will always be something new, and that is very difficult to incorporate for an AI unless someone else has already done the analysis. So if someone has already done the analytics, okay, it's very difficult for AI to spot something which is entirely and completely new. Also, the interpretation may be uh kind of like accurate, but again, and this is something that I noticed um when it comes to AI, you again you need to train the LLM model on something, but the only thing you can train that model on is the material that has been published, which is publicly available. In fact, there are some um notorious CEOs that are now complaining about the fact that um there is limited material out there for LLM because a lot of other things is behind a paywall. Because people, of course, you know, uh think about like a lot of the uh academic journals, okay? You can't access them, okay, unless you are a member of the university, of the university, or you pay for them. Correct. Okay. So the question is: are companies going to be willing to give up their intellectual property, because of course that's what is going to happen, into LLMs? I don't think so. What actually might happen is that there will be more commonplace for companies to build an internal database, okay, of analytics, okay, and models, and then they will build their own agency, uh, their own agents, internal agents, okay, that will be trained on those analytics and they will feed on them. So when you are a client and you go there and say, hey, give me a summary, I don't know, of what happened uh uh, you know, in the market, in the crude own market, I don't know, over the last week, the agent, the agent might be able to provide that, but probably that comes from the um uh that comes from the um uh internal database, okay, from the internal information that you as a company have developed. And I I see this as a much more likely um uh outcome out there because I don't really think companies are gonna be willing to give up their intellectual property or you know, publish uh data that are behind a paywall and give everything for free because you know that's gonna be the case. So it's gonna be it's interesting to see how this develops, okay? But if you have a skill set and and this is something that we can expand later on, things are gonna be good for you. And the problem is that you are not gonna be able to maybe, you know, explode or mature, use the term that you like that you uh like the most in the future, like in your career as a professional, only having um vertical skill or horizontal knowledge. You need to have diagonal knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Very, very true. I mean, I'm seeing that in in my space, right? And and not just hands-on craft design, but also strategy. Organizations are falling over themselves to try and utilize this new technology paradigm. Um, but very, very quickly, because I think that's one of the advantages of this new tech. Things are happening a lot quicker. Where it's great is that the errors of the speed uh of utilizing the data are also becoming a lot more visible, a lot quicker. And so the contextualization of the data is inversely proportional to the speed that it is available for, right? That that's that's my view. Would you what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Am I broadly No, I completely agree with you, my friend. Uh the the the speed uh at which like the computational speed of certain processes is um uh increased by orders of magnitude over the last few years. And I think this is a trend that is gonna continue, okay, also in the future, um, also as we get into another paradigm, which is the quantum computing era, okay, which is you know around the corner. It's not quite here yet, but it's around the corner. So, what I think is gonna happen is that the the computational side will, you know, continue to develop, like in terms of speed and sophistication. Um, and however, this will allow human beings to focus on something else. On more, I think the role of human beings in the future, uh, and this is particularly true for um energy and shipping, this will be more on the why behind the volatility of the market, why it's happening that way. We might have like a bunch of algorithms that are all coded up, that are all there available, okay, and they all run at the same time, then it's fine. What you make, and you can have someone that suggests to you, okay, this is the interpretation because the AI may do that, okay? But in the reality, ultimately are humans that actually need to make the decisions. Because if things go wrong, we take the consequences of it. You always have to take on the bad, you know, always have to think about about the bad side. You know, the when it comes to its pure risk management, which is what volatility is around, that what volatility is about, sorry, that at the end of the day, that's what it is. Volatility is a form of risk, right? So you need to understand that. And the computational speed that we have right now probably is gonna be even more in the future, okay? But I don't see this as a problem. I think that we are going to be more focused on strategy, okay, than on pure computation by you know, uh uh per se. So I think this is the direction we're going.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Agreed. I mean, thank you. Uh I'm glad you're agreeing with me there because I'm I'm seeing parallels with many, many different types of activity, yeah. Um, because we're all jumping on this train called artificial intelligence. And then therefore, the methods uh you'll find patterns there. Um, the tolerances you'll find patents there, regardless of what it is that you're using the tech

Hypervolatility And Market Stress

SPEAKER_00 19:48

for. But anyway, so you've moved into a space called hypervolatility. And you're looking at my interpretation, so again, please keep me honest, sir, um, the volatility of volatility, right? Um, and in 2026, I think everything is happening, uh, that is happening rather in energy and geopolitics. We're seeing a are we seeing a permanent shift in market stress? Or are the models showing that eventually things are gonna snap back to the middle? What um, and again, forgive you know my my ignorance on this, is is what I'm trying to describe, is that what you would generally refer to as a mean reversion? Did I get that right?

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Yes. Um, that's a very good question. Um, let's break it down.

Energy And Shipping Move Together

SPEAKER_03 20:46

So, yes, I moved to uh you know, in a space that's called hypervolatility. That's my company, that's my baby. Um uh and um I'm working on it, and we're I focus on two markets, and these two markets right now probably have uh are clearer. One is energy, so crude oil mainly, more on the financial side. Uh crude oil, diesel, uh bunker fuel, uh, and jet fuel. And on the other side, you have shipping, also because uh like freight rates in particular, but freight freights in particular when it comes to crude oil tankers, product tankers, and LNG tankers. These are the things that uh I'm focusing on. Also because these two things are connected, right? Like uh you can't have your yeah, but yeah, like oil and uh and gas are distributed around the world using ships. And there is no better alternative. There's no cheaper way to uh um uh uh to to uh to move these large quantities of energy around, which is also precisely why uh you know shipping is so important. More than 88% of anything that is transported in the world, okay, is transported via ships out at sea on deep sea uh vessels. Uh um

SPEAKER_00 22:00

ocean going uh ships and that's why you know i i'm in uh you know in in the middle let's put it the way of the of these things because one effect the one market affects the other and vice versa again volatility this is called volatility spillover effect okay the volatility of energy spills into the freight rates volatility and vice versa volatility of uh like for instance right now this is what we're seeing uh we we have the problem with the straightover moves yeah ships are not going through so the volatility of the freight rates is actually spilling over the energy sector and it's pushing all the the the the prices to unprecedented levels um so the uh it to me this is the very interesting um uh uh architecture behind the um uh these markets fascinating markets because you need to combine the financial side and and uh and the physical side because the financial side is now more important and that's precisely why um of course the physical side remains important but it's now 50% only of the picture the remaining 50% is the financials so you need to add that part if you are looking only at physical you are looking only you have a partial view of what's happening in the world so that's why you need to you know broaden that out and um the volatility is very important because that's a very um uh a very good measure for risk and you can measure that over different markets so you can see how different markets are reacting to that and that's precisely why you know the focus on volatility and that's precisely why and the name hypervolatility that's the focus and that's the reason also why I decided to put to create two sections hyper volatility energy and upper volatility maritime yes it's like right in the middle uh and uh but provides a combined um information as I told you before the diagonal knowledge is the key and I'm trying actually to put in practice also when it comes to business I mean clearly this is a complicated thing right but you know I'm I'm sitting here and I'm I'm remembering the work that you know the small design team that I was starting to create there was doing and um particularly with vessel monitoring right and traffic um and Joachim uh brilliant brilliant designer um he was focusing on that um but when I was having conversations around trying to frame the statement of work and all of that kind of stuff um and again please keep me honest here um there are so many dimensions to your area of speciality right and and I thank you for uh making it easier uh for the likes of me to understand right um but I'm gonna do the traditional Joel thing and jump into a little bit of a metaphor and just please tell me if if if I've got this right so if I've understood you correctly right so the the price is the destination and volatility is kind of like well how bumpy is the road yeah and you are one of those genius people who you'll tell us if the car's gonna survive the trip so thank you for the genius but I don't know if I deserve that very kind of you uh let's let I usually like great metaphor by the way and uh uh let me take this also opportunity to thank you for the uh great design work that you have done when you were working at Platz I had a great time also collaborating with you I remember you know come uh coming to your desk and having a uh a chit chat over here and you taught me you know the few things that I know also about uh UX and design I didn't really know much so uh thank you for that it was uh great working with you thank you when it comes to volatility you actually got it right let's put it this way when you wake up in the morning okay you need to go to the office okay so you wake up in the morning you know you you know you wash your face you have your coffee or tea whatever you fancy okay you dress up you get in the car or the tube whatever it is the transportation that you're using okay you get to the office and you start to work right volatility is exactly that it's what happens in the middle because maybe you know you spill coffee over your shirt and you need to change it okay or maybe you go in the car and there is I don't know either there are some on uh road work somewhere and there is and uh and you know there are traffic jams over there so you are delayed or I don't know there is another problem with I don't know you get stuck in the elevator when you're trying to get into the office and you spend another 10 minutes there because you know uh they they need to uh they need to open up the doors so you know this is what volatility at the end of the day where even if it doesn't really matter if you are a a retail investor if you are an institutional investor if you are a large energy company if you are a refiner or if you are a shipping company the only thing you can determine when you are into the market is what you do with the position that you have in the

Volatility As A Risk Map

SPEAKER_00 27:38

market. You can control when you get in and you can control when you get out okay what happens in between it's all strategy and this is what volatility is about that's why volatility is the the um the the crucial thing to monitor and to understand in order to build a hedging strategy in order to cover basically you okay but think of volatility pretty much like an insurance you know if sing uh something like this happens okay I know this can be volatile okay but precisely why I know this can be volatile I'm gonna get this kind of insurance okay it's like it tells it's a map nothing but a map for risk okay so it's it's crucial to understand what's going on because you know the the the bumpier the road becomes okay the lesser the the the fewer money uh the company makes of course companies then are uh forced to uh um uh to to to to downsize the personnel and all this because they're not making enough profits so when the market gets volatile and it it will always get volatile because we have absolutely no other way to react to it because things happen in the world and you know I have exactly we might have a geopolitical crisis or might we might have a problem with uh something that like a technical problem for instance uh think about um um what happens to the Seuez canal when the ship got stuck into that and you know ships couldn't uh sail through it okay there were companies that lost millions in a matter of a few days you know these kind of things need to be you know that's volatility okay and because that's reflected into the price okay the volatility is pretty much like the soul of energy and shipping prices okay and what I'm actually trying to understand is to go beyond you know the physical so go beyond the body and look at what the soul of the price is if you like no for sure I mean this this is one of the things um one of the many things right that that I love about what it is that I do because what you've just described is a really complex version of a service blueprint right um you can be on a journey and that journey will have many many steps and it will have many many dependencies but you need to understand that for every dependency for every interaction there has to be a contingency and if you don't build in those contingencies into your service model really bad things are gonna happen right um I'm laughing about it but this this is the fundamental element of you know um why I love service design so much and um why being in a space that that we were both occupying was it was just fun you know um and I was exposed to so many different things um because the context was completely different and you've alluded to okay what happens if a vessel you know can't move right well the share price of whatever commodity is going to get hammered because the expectation hasn't been met um or bad weather or some geopolitical nonsense or you know there could be a fire in a refinery um anything literally and that is going to affect what is happening to that vessel um the expectation of that vessel and and and you've described it far more eloquently than I ever could it is fundamentally risk management and and how you as an organization or an individual you know um number one do you have access do you have visibility to that data uh do you have confidence in that data do you have the wherewithal the expertise which you ooze forgive me um to actually understand how to interpret all of those data points for multiple scenarios I mean it blew my mind way back then it still blows my mind now it's an incredibly exciting space to be in um particularly for I think system thinkers creative system thinkers like me as well um that said sir how how did you get into this line of work I mean let me take it all the way back right because I mean the academia yeah granted double masters and everything else that that you you've got which is which is awesome but um because also volatility is about the identification of patterns in the same way that the work that I do is the identification of patterns primarily what were you doing when you were like uh a little tiny version of Vito where you did you have specific toys that you played with or activities that you participated in okay let's uh I'll I'll try to condense in a few minutes the you know the the the the everything so when I was a kid like when I was very young okay what I enjoyed a lot was Lego but in particular Lego Technic.

Lego Technic And Pattern Thinking

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Lego Technic is it's a more sophisticated way of uh building up Lego bricks okay because it's done with metal pieces right and you could build cars you could build ships you know you you could do everything it was very very very beautiful I love that I spent hours doing those kind of things also because at the time you know uh um uh uh the the the only thing that was there was TV right it was the first computers there the first video games yeah I was playing video games and all that but you know I I was really more interested in building something you know by hand you know and then you know destroying it like and then assembling back um back again in order to see you know how pieces were going uh I've got to I've got to ask you sorry to interrupt were you one of those lovely people who okay you had to follow all of the instructions you had to get like you know uh the big paper out and do I have all of my components and the steps or were you just okay I'm just gonna empty all of this stuff up in the middle of the floor and I'm just gonna build it uh no I would do that uh like I was alpha way between the two because okay um I was not going to check if I owe all the pieces what I was doing is I would trust like the package when I got it okay and something was missing then I would go there and check everything. Okay, okay okay that is uh the the thing that I because I was too excited so when I got you know when my parents bought me these kind of things you know but I rushed to build them because that was the excitement okay and that's uh and so if I had like a problem like I couldn't find a piece or couldn't understand then I would go back and read all the instructions but in general what I would do I wouldn't check if the pieces were all there but I would check the visuals very very very accurately this is something that always done I would look at the visual and see how because the in at the time at least you know there there were like they there would be like some kind of pictures where they show you how the pieces were fitting together. Yeah that what it's something I would check very very clearly and then I would go on and do it. So this is something that I would definitely do it. And um yeah and then I would check if oh I had all the pieces and all that and then it I would make a final check at the end if some pieces were remaining like why they were remaining it was I was supposed to have more of this okay like just in case I lose some or something that I'm missing.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

So I would check this kind of stuff uh I got so getting back to the question how I got into volatility like it's completely different because I started off in life doing another thing I um I'm Italian and I got into the Italian Navy particularly and uh and I would then I was part of the Marine School um when I was when I was there and I've been there for uh three years roughly but at the same time I was actually studying at university then um I graduated and I decided you know to keep going and do something entirely different because I liked economics and like I liked finance so I went more into this and um when I finished the my uh bachelor degree I got into my master's degree and when I got into my master's degree I started to get more and more in touch with the statistical aspect of um um of um uh of the markets and this is where you know the Eureka moment you know happened for me because you know all the curiosity that I had while I was building the Lego techniques came back because I because in my mind it was a whoa using you know computing like programming and statistics yeah I can extract all the possible data that I want out of it like a lot of people don't understand this but there is a lot of creativity you know going on in mathematics and statistics even though they are separate things but when you when you're doing engineering mathematics statistics there are there is a lot of creativity going on there because a lot of people think about creativity when it comes to um you know art okay and of course you need to be creative but the word create you are creating creativity the root of the word is to create you are creating something and that's where the that's the beauty out of it and if you are a passionate person about if you're passionate about what you're doing okay um I mean the the this some way is gonna come up okay it's a you can't keep it within you it's impossible okay correct it will have to go out necessarily whatever that is okay whether it's music whether it's designing whether it's like uh you know mathematics whether it's like my case statistics energy volatility and shipping okay that kind of interior power that you have you know trapped within you that kind of stuff if you channel it okay uh that's to me the real meaning of success okay because you are doing something that you love and if you're doing something that you love you know you're never gonna feel it as work okay you're never you're never gonna call it work okay because it's something you're passionate about it so true it is so true I mean I've you know been blessed I've worked with so many fantastic people in in amazing organizations and um that theme it it it is just uh it's like a fractal it's reoccurring all of the time all of the time all of the time um you know wow just wow so okay um the more complex Lego right uh that makes total sense um what else were you doing then right um you you talked about uh the navy and for me straight away there's that intersection between creativity and discipline right correct um and I think particularly the discipline aspect it's missing it's really really missing I mean I'm I'm lucky that I'm still mentoring lots of uh younger designers and mid-levels you know uh a couple of seniors as well um who are helping me out tremendously that's very very reciprocal but the discipline that is required uh in both of our spaces uh I don't think folks number one acknowledge it and I don't think folks actually um demonstrate practically how important that is in uh whether you're uh you know running your own show or whether you're in a larger ecosystem.

Discipline As A Career Advantage

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Um and that's very very evident when I when I work with lots of different people and also in different geographies. Am I making sense still like that that that that triad of you know what you bring to the table so it is the creativity obviously it is um the knowledge uh and and the work and the specialism that you do but also that requires so much discipline there's got to be method there has to be a framework there's got to be that governance I agree 100% I agree 100% uh what so uh the experience that I had in the Navy in the Italian Navy and the Marines Corps it's uh that it has shaped me greatly I mean I couldn't really understand it at the beginning because I was 20 something at the time so you don't really understand it because you are part of the process you're in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yes so you don't really get to appreciate what is the discipline you know when it comes to like the work ethic that you develop and you build that allows you to do this kind of things. However I was lucky because and I agree with you that it's we um uh uh I mean I see this missing nowadays because I also a privileged person because I I get to mentor a lot of other people a lot of young people that want to get into the the world of energy the world of shipping okay so they come to me and um I always try to return the favor because when I was their age I had a problem to get in and I had a problem like to uh because it was way too much knowledge so I I wanted someone to guide me and then I found someone who was my mentor okay and he and when I asked him like why you're doing this why you're spending so much time with me and he said because someone has done it with me when I was your age and now I'm returning the favor. So I'm just continuing the change. Every said that the discipline is important for anything. Like and I don't really think you will ever amount to anything unless you have it. Because passion is great and passion will drive you forward because it's the curiosity that you have but you're not gonna wake up every single morning saying oh wow fantastic now I'm gonna change the world sometimes you know things don't go that way sometimes you don't feel motivated even if it's something that you love even if you're doing something that you love. Okay sometimes it's gonna be you know um uh more difficult for you to uh push yourself to get the stuff done and this is where uh discipline comes in discipline is the habit of doing something that you don't want to do like you love it. And that is a type of thing that you can only develop over years and years of practice. There is absolutely no way and this is the the key message that I try to say to the younger generations there is absolutely nothing you will ever do unless you build discipline because any Anything that is great requires an extensive amount of work. And that extensive amount of work is going to be able to be done only if every single day you ended up a brick. You do whatever you need to do, and and you know, day by day, you sail another mile, and then when you look back, you see, oh wow, I left the port and I managed to sail through all these waters, and now I am almost close to my destination. This is what happens, this is what a life is about. So, like if you're doing things like I do, like volatility, statistics, and all these kind of things that are fascinating and great. You have fun. It's a lot of fun doing those things. But at the beginning, you know, there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into reading. I read a lot still to this day. Yeah. And and um it you need to have like a certain amount of discipline in order to build this uh this kind of knowledge, this kind of expertise. And this is true for every sector. Okay. I see it also in you, like you're working in wax and design, and I see that passion in you for what you're doing, and uh, but I also see someone that is a great expert, someone that put in the discipline, and someone that you know brought everything to another level. You're never gonna be able to do this unless it's you put a mix of passion and at the same time discipline. Uh those are the the the uh those are the uh uh agents, like the chemical uh compounds that you need to mix in order to have, you know, in order to make magic happens at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Couldn't could not agree any more with you, sir. I mean, what a great, great experience and knowledge that that you're sharing with everybody. Um and I'm I'm actually quite jealous that you know someone is is is getting mentored by you. Um uh yeah, I mean what a gift. What a gift. Um I mean just gonna expand on that just just a

Practical Advice For Living With Risk

SPEAKER_00 46:21

little bit. So in different ways, we've I guess spent our lives watching markets moving, yeah. Um it's very, very evident in the design space when you know a tech a new tech arrives or you know, and it opens up different markets and it opens up different opportunities and things like that. Um, and that's always going to be the case, always. Um but going back to your space, which is volatility, if there was one piece of advice that you would give to whomever, right, and say that they were terrified by the volatility of the modern world right now, and it's a huge question, it's another huge question. So forgive me for that.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

What would be that advice from you? Great question. My advice is volatility in the market is scarier than you think.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

So if you avoid it, like you don't try to control it or you don't try to manage it using like the proper tools, the proper analytics, it's going to impact you, whether you like it or not. At the end of the day, if you are in the market, like in my space, if you are in crude oil, take in account, okay, crude oil, gas, and slash LNG. Crude oil, diesel, and LNG have a an average volatility, we're talking about implied volatility in the options market, it is around about 28-30%. Okay, just for reference, the volatility of the um um S ⁇ P 500, which is the biggest financial index out there, is around 13, 14 percent. And the volatility of the two main benchmarks for the bond markets. So we're talking about the uh German Bund and the US T-bills, the volatility there is around 5-7%. So we are talking about some of the crude oil and um diesel and uh gas, they have some of the most high, some of the highest volatility in the world. And if you look at shipping and freight rates, their volatility is even higher. For sure. Because there are some markets where volatility can easily, the spikes can even get over 100%, 120%. So that is going to impact you, okay, whether you like it or not. If you are in into the business and you're trying to avoid this, okay, you're gonna be caught in the middle. It's like, you know, think of yourself, like of your business, pretty much like it's a big boat, you know, it right in the middle of the ocean. Okay, even if you are in the Mediterranean Sea, which is not as big as the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, as you know, as big storms, even if you are big, you're still gonna have a lot of problems. Okay. It doesn't really matter how big you are, even if you are in a VLCC, which is a very large crude carrier, it's one of the largest ships ever built. Or even more, a ULCC, which is an ultra-large crude carrier, you're still going to have problems if you have a big storm over there. Okay? That's what volatility is about. You are not gonna to be, you are not going to be able to sell through. That's why it's very important uh, you know, to acquire the right analytics when it comes to this. And that's why volatility is such an indicate, big indicator. And that's why, and volatility you have it everywhere. You have volatility in the physical market, but the what I do is mainly the volatility in the derivatives market, options in futures, because there you can see how the market is actually hedging, what they are actually doing in order to prevent unwanted from volatility to hit their portfolio. Whether the portfolio is physical or financial, it's irrelevant. Okay? So that is the key when it comes to this. So the advice I would give to these people is get more into it. Okay, you need to learn about this because this is part of your business. If you are in the energy sector, or if you are in the shipping sector, okay, this is part of your business. Okay? Risk is a part of your business. And that's something that happens all the time. It's like being an athlete, after all, okay? You can be a great player, okay? Like we're talking about football players. When I say football, I mean, you know, the European football course. Like when look at European football, okay? You can be a great player, okay? Think about Roberto Baggio or Totti. Think about, I don't know, Maldini or Ronaldo, like the phenomenon, you know, like the the Brazilian one or Messi, whatever is the player. Yeah. These players have risk. They need to take risk. They they get injured, and you don't know if you're gonna recover, you know, correctly. But this is something that you need to do. So you need you need to prevent this kind of thing from happening. So you know you have a medical team over there that takes care of you, you need the the physician over there that are taking care of you. That's what a business is about. The business is about being an athlete, you need to take care of that. The same is for ships or for energy. You need to take care of this. And if there is a market, the market is gonna move. Because if we all agreed about the price, there would be no need for the market, right? If we all agreed on the price immediately and say, hey Joel, how are you doing? Say, oh, cool. What about you know, we get a pint? We all agree at a price. Everybody's happy around the world about the price that we we negotiated. There would be no need for a market. So the market has to be volatile. Okay? It's not a question whether the market is going to be uh volatile or not. The question is how much volatility is going to be in that market. And that's where the quantitative intelligence that I'm providing with my company comes into play. Because there is no way to avoid it. You just need to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

That's beautiful. It reminded me of uh an article that I wrote right a little while back now. Um The ocean is design. Right. Because in the ocean, you're going to get everything. You're going to get the coral, you're going to get, I don't know how many different types of fish, you're also going to get those sharks. And they don't care. You're also going to have storms and all everything, everything can happen in that ocean. But it exists. You need to understand how to exist within that ecosystem, whether it's good things or bad things, small things or whatever. So managing chaos, yet the mathematics will provide us all with a little bit of comfort, right? And I think that's incredibly important. And for me, that's where particularly the discipline and the methodology comes into play. Um and without that, I don't see that the chaos could even be number one measured, let alone trying to manage those disparate outcomes. Right? I mean, this is as always. I mean, I I I could I could speak with you, sir, for for days on end. Um it's so incredibly just exciting. The stuff that we can talk about and and how it affects literally everything. Um I'm I'm I'm yeah. If if I wasn't doing what I'm doing, then um, yeah, I'd I'd try to go back to school and and try and get into your line of work because I think it's incredibly fascinating, but um I don't think I'm I'm clever enough, right? So there's that. Um Vito, sir, uh thank you so much for making yourself available. Um and and sharing not just about what it is that you do and why you do it and how you do it, um, but also, you know, what what steps, what were the elements that were there to um add to this this beautiful cocktail that is you, right? Um is there anything, anything at all that you know we haven't touched on, but you particularly wanted to to to share with everybody?

Education And Critical Thinking

SPEAKER_03 55:37

First of all, I would I would like to say that you definitely are intelligent and you would succeed in this field even going back to school. So that's that's something that you know you would be clearly capable and you would be great at it. That's the first thing. Uh for everybody else, there is something that I care about a lot, and that is education. When I say education, I don't I'm not talking about like the former one. Whether it's education, educate a university, okay, or something that you have by yourself, it's that is the most important thing. What in whatever, whichever is the field that you choose, it doesn't really matter. What I what I realized for me, what changed my life, were two things. One were, of course, the the the Marines part, okay? That you get the discipline, you get all this, and you know, the the working out, like the also discipline to work out, which is important. But on when it comes to career, I think that uh the education, like the the the amount of books that you read, okay, or the uh the the the uh the education you go through, like when you get a degree and all that, and you keep going after the degree. So you build, like you specialize in a particular type of field and then you keep reading. These things are gonna change your life radically. You're not gonna become the same person, okay? It's like um uh uh you know, it's it's it's like getting yourself into the river, right? The river, the water, it's never the same river because it's never the same you, or it's not the same water that you touched in the first time you got into the river. Okay? So it's and uh and um and it's exactly the same thing. Like it's not the same you. You change with education, okay? Because it challenges your mind to get to another level. And this is something that I think in an era where you are told constantly what to do, where you know everyone is trying to tell you, you know, how you should think, what you should be doing using social media, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I think it's beautiful. It's absolutely rebellious right now to be a critical thinker, okay? To have your own opinion about a fact, not being scared of sharing that opinion, and actually, more importantly, being able to explain eloquently why that is you know the view you have, because that's what accounts. And because it opens minds, and you never know who you can expire with your story or with uh with the discussion that you have. You never know, okay? And and that's the beauty of it, and that's precisely why if you want to do something, whatever, whichever is the field you want to choose, educate yourself.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

100%, 100%. Again, we keep agreeing with each other, Vito. It's like um no surprises there. Uh look, seriously, um, thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, this has been an absolute joy uh to see you again, to speak with you again. Um, and I promise I'll I'll try and uh not leave it so long because you are uh just an amazing human.

unknown 59:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Thank you. It's such a it's such a joy to to to speak with you again. Um and you're so generous. You've been so generous with uh everything that you've shared on the show.

How To Reach Vito

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Um how do folks get in touch with you? So you're running your own thing, hyper volatility. How can anybody get in touch with the awesomeness that you bring?

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Well, thank you for that, and again, thank you for inviting me to the show. I think it's great, and I think you are great, so it's great to see you again. In the in terms of contact, you the best way to um is go on LinkedIn. Okay, if you go on LinkedIn, you could either go on the hypervolatility page, or if you um uh send me a friend request, my personal profile, Vito Turito, you can get there and uh you know you can always uh drop me a message, and uh if I can help you, I would be more than glad to do so.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Fantastic, fantastic. So, everyone who's listening, um remember the road might be bumpy, uh, but as long as you understand the vibration, you can keep your car on the track. And we'll see you at the next stop. Rito, sir, thank you, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Thank you, everyone.