The day started quietly with May’25 moving back up from an early 18.71 low print to sit in the 18.80 area. A tight trading band remained in place for the duration of the morning, and while it didn’t provide traders with anything to get excited about it did serve to reinforce yesterdays move and provide the platform for the market to continue towards 19c. The first signs of this arrived during the early afternoon as some light buying interest from the US edged prices into the 18.90’s, and it was not long until additional support arrived with the break of 19c being met with some light stops which accelerated the move into the lower teens. Producer selling was dotted around at the higher levels, though is not as substantial as it might have been had the USDBRL remained above 6,and while the market was not extending beyond 19.19 there was proving to be sufficient confidence amongst the longs to hold values a small way below. Buyers returned during the closing stages to generate another move through the teens, and while the earlier high remained a close at 19.16 sends the market into the 3-day holiday weekend positively. While the Index roll has now concluded there was again selling dominating the March/May’25 spread activity today, with the value falling back to a low at 1.23 points and ending the day at 1.26 points.
May’25 began its tenure as spot month with a small dip back down to $525.40, however there was no damage inflicted on the technical picture and values soon settled down to another period of quiet consolidation. This lasted through into the early afternoon and for a long while it seemed that there would be a muted end to the week despite the technical picture having plenty f promise. The situation only changed around the middle of the afternoon as fresh buying interest pushed the market to new highs, gathering additional support along the way to build the pace and move May’25 higher to look at the formerly supportive November lows. Such impressive gains were being treasured by the longs, and they proceeded to hold the market within a couple of dollars of these through the rest of the afternoon to end the week strongly. Spreads were steady but unspectacular with the outright providing the focus, and MOC buying emerged to end the week with a flourish. This took May’25 to $538.50 with settlement at $537.50, a strong platform to continue higher on Monday when trading resumes. As anticipated, the March’25 tender saw 8,224 lots (411,200mt) delivered.
