The Doctrine Card

Everything this programme rests on, on one page, taken from the book. Print it and keep it in the folder you take to the trading review. Approve the evidence boundary before approving the model. Examine downside cash before celebrating expected margin.

The six frameworks

Framework	What it says
The Operating-Intelligence Loop	Sense, decide, act and learn. Sensing means acquiring a valid price, contract, cargo event or cash update; deciding, comparing authorised alternatives; acting, issuing an approved instruction; learning, reconciling the result with the original decision and assumptions. Counting alerts measures output; counting accepted interventions and their consequences measures whether the loop works.
The Data-Foundation Precondition	A price needs a benchmark, unit, currency, delivery basis, publication time and permitted use; a quantity its product, measurement basis and ownership status; a contract its accepted version and parties; a cash balance its currency, restrictions and availability. Start with the evidence for one important decision and preserve missing and disputed information.
The Autonomy Ladder	From read-only retrieval to drafting, recommendations and narrowly authorised execution, each step requiring evidence for the specific task. Approval to summarise an agreement does not authorise a price commitment, hedge order, payment or cargo release.
The Value-versus-Risk Map	Map economic usefulness against the consequences of failure, ranking candidates by materiality, reversibility, time pressure and evidence quality. A high potential benefit does not offset an unresolved mandatory condition.
The Sequencing Discipline	Establish the transaction record, reconcile the position, run a bounded advisory pilot and compare it with the existing method. Expand authority only after the technical result and human response are dependable; scale the proven workflow, including its exceptions and support costs.
The Operations-Excellence Lens	Judge the application by accepted commercial and operating results: fewer material contract omissions, earlier exposure recognition, feasible deliveries, lower investigated discrepancies and more dependable cash planning. Forecast accuracy and response speed matter when they improve those results.

These are the six series frameworks adapted to trading, not external standards. The models, decision records and implementation methods in the book are the author’s proposed operating designs.

The four views of every trade

View	What it records
Commercial	Obligations and price formulas
Physical	Product, quality, location, quantity and movement
Risk	Sensitivities, limits, credit and contingencies
Cash	Payments, receipts, collateral, restrictions and funding

The views do not have to contain identical numbers at every moment. They must explain differences, and each number needs its own status: confirmed, provisional, estimated or disputed.

The decision record

Read the book with one live decision in mind: whether to accept a cargo, extend customer credit, change a hedge, nominate gas or fund a purchase. Write down the latest time at which better information could change that decision — that deadline is where the AI programme begins. The decision record contains the question, evidence cut-off, alternatives, recommendation, uncertainty, authority, accepted action, realised outcome and review date.

The ninety days

Period	Purpose	Main work
Days 1 to 30	Establish the decision boundary	Choose one use case; confirm the authorised scope, evidence owners and simpler comparator; reconstruct representative completed trades; create the application register and pilot charter; establish permissions and a manual fallback; agree the reference cases before tuning
Days 31 to 60	Prove the evidence	Build the controlled inputs and calculations; run as-of replay; test amendments, stale prices, interrupted tools, missed events and uncertain recommendations; evaluate reviewer burden; do not broaden scope because the first examples look good
Days 61 to 90	Test the response	Operate in shadow or bounded advisory mode; preserve the recommendation, evidence, human decision and outcome; review weekly with trading, risk, treasury and operations; at day ninety decide to expand, revise, retain limited use or stop

The deadline is a review discipline, not a promise that every trading model can be validated in three months. Rare credit events and extreme market behaviour require a different evidence horizon.

Responsibility and authority

Decision	Accountable function	AI contribution	Retained approval
Trade commitment	Trading and commercial leadership	Evidence pack and feasible alternatives	Delegated commitment authority
Exposure and hedge limits	Independent risk	Reconciliation and anomaly advisory	Risk policy and authorised execution
Funding and collateral	Treasury	Dated forecasts and joint stresses	Funding and draw approval
Cargo and product release	Operations and quality	Readiness and evidence checks	Competent release authorities
Credit exception	Credit authority	Calibrated review ranking	Credit decision and conditions
Contract interpretation	Legal and commercial	Retrieved clauses and conflict identification	Accepted specialist interpretation
Final economics	Finance	Reconciliation preparation	Accounting and benefit acceptance

The executive decision records: A1 trade approval, A2 daily trading exception, A3 model acceptance, A4 cash and collateral, A5 source and compliance change, A6 benefit and learning. A6 classifies value as realised, partially supported or projected, and records the next decision: continue, revise, restrict, expand or stop.

The 15 sessions and the plan they build

#	Session	Plan section
1	The Intelligent Trading Business and the Reader's Toolkit	Section 1 — Our trading business, the one live decision we will carry, its latest useful time and where its loop breaks.
2	Lead the Whole Trade	Section 2 — The mandate, the disagreements between functions and the interval between the first change and the last useful intervention.
3	One Architecture and the Four Views of Every Trade	Section 3 — Our activity classified, the value chain mapped and the four views of our decision reconciled.
4	Build an AI-Ready Trading Record	Section 4 — The minimum record for our decision, the availability of each input, the missing-data rules and the first audit.
5	Market Intelligence and Forecasting	Section 5 — The forecast our decision can use, its baseline, its uncertainty test, the stresses kept separate and the suspension conditions.
6	The Contract Copilot	Section 6 — The contract terms our decision depends on and the contract-to-trade acceptance record.
7	Crude Pricing, Differential Exposure and Cargo Quality	Section 7 — Our price formula and its clock, the same-basis comparison and the quality evidence our decision needs.
8	The Delivered Margin and Inventory Allocation	Section 8 — The delivered margin, its funding currency and the constraints that govern available stock.
9	Gas on an Energy Basis and LNG and LPG Portfolios	Section 9 — Our accepted quantity basis, the order-to-cash reconciliation and every option tied to a right.
10	Freight, Arrival, Demurrage and Custody Transfer	Section 10 — The voyage clock, the delay decision and the reconciled cut-off behind our decision.
11	Market Risk, Hedging, Liquidity and Trade Finance	Section 11 — The exposures, the residual basis after hedging and the dated cash ladder with its first infeasible day.
12	Credit, Regulatory Evidence, Sanctions and Fraud	Section 12 — Credit exposure and its approval, the regulatory evidence record and the controls on identity and payment changes.
13	Govern Models and Agents	Section 13 — The application register entry, the agent's concrete permissions and the change, monitoring and fallback rules.
14	The Inspectable Investment Case and the Trading Intelligence Team	Section 14 — The inspectable investment case, the benefits register, the pilot design and the owners who survive turnover.
15	The Executive Review: Your Signed 90-Day AI Trading Plan	The signed 90-Day AI Trading Plan.

ERW CommandTrading · built on The Intelligent Trading — A Leadership Doctrine for AI in Nigerian Crude, Petroleum Products and Gas Trading by Ritchie Wingo. Leadership training, not investment, trading, legal, tax or engineering advice. Back to the programme home →

THE INTELLIGENT TRADING LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME

Lead the whole trade.