Resuming after the long weekend Oct’22 found some light buying to print up to 18.85 during early trading, though the move failed to match that made by London whites yesterday and so was disappointing for those hoping to break the current malaise. This set the tone for the rest of the morning during which prices edged quietly sideways on low volume, maintaining the recent pattern with prices continuing to sit ahead of the consumer scale buying. Moving into the afternoon there was some movement outside of this range with prices steadily starting to climb back upwards, a little spec buying the likely reason though little resistance was being met from the sell side with producers absent at current levels. Momentum built to trigger some buy stops (smaller specs covering back recent shorts) and take Oct’22 to a daily high at 19.11, however progress halted once the cover had been taken. Last weeks COT showed that the spec net long had reduced by 41,555 lots to now sit at just 71,161 lots, though thoughts that the short covering may lead to further buying quickly ended as the self- same specs got caught in the revolving door with a fall back into the lower end of the range. The final part of the day saw a return to calmer trading, and we ended only marginally up as Oct’22 settled at 18.78 while Jul/Oct’22 was a touch lower at -0.12 points. This leaves the picture largely unchanged with no clear direction emerging for the near term.
