It was a very quiet start to the session as Oct’24 slipped back to 18.96, and for the first 90 minutes the market stumbled along on low volume. At this point some buying emerged, not surprising given the recovery in prices, and with selling limited unto the 19.20’s the market was able to pull up to this area fairly quickly before looking to consolidate the gains ahead of the busier afternoon period. The arrival of US specs prompted another move upward and the price extended to 19.42 to be almost a cent higher than Wednesdays lows. Scale selling prevented additional upside movement and there was some profit taking which added to the resistance, but though the market drifted back into the range it maintained a positive glow in the 19.20’s. The final day of the index roll saw the Oct’24/March’25 continue around the -0.35/-0.40 point area, though other spreads were quiet and expectations are that with the roll concluded and options expired the market will return to lower volumes next week. Until the final 10 minutes it appeared that the day would end comfortably to the centre of the range, however a pre-weekend twist saw aggressive late selling which led to new lows at 18.92 on the post close. Oct’24 settled at 19.01 because of this, heading into the weekend still shackled within the wider range.
A muted start to the day saw Dec’24 lose some ground and slip to $524.00, though once the first hour had passed the picture started to improve. There was a quick rally through to $530.00 before some better selling started to emerge and slow things down, leaving smaller traders to chop around within the range either side of noon. Having recovered so well during the second half of this week the smaller traders and specs were keen to maintain the initiative and bid the market up further and through the early afternoon their efforts achieved highs at $535.00, just $6 shy of the mark set in late August. The momentum could not be maintained and having slipped back into the range a calm afternoon of sideways consolidation near to $530.00 ensued. Much attention was being given to Oct’24 on its final outing, and there was still a steady volume trading for the Oct/Dec’24 spread as fine tuning took place ahead of an expected large tender this evening. The market continued within the range through into the close with Dec’24 drifting off a little to close at $527.90, with a sharper dip following on the post close as the last of the pre-weekend position squaring too place. Oct’24 expired at $548.60 with the Oct/Dec’24 spread valued at $20.70. It is anticipated that 10,892 lots (544,600mt) will be tendered with formal confirmation of participants/origins to follow from the exchange on Monday.
