The market sat marginally lower through the early part of today’s session, though given the poor nature of yesterday’s showing the lack of selling on display from specs garnered some positivity. Slowly but surely, there was an increase from the buy side with some end users stepping up their pricing levels, and this in turn drew some light covering of recent short positions. Oct’24 established itself above 18.00 by the end of the morning and the knock-on effect of short covering continued to be felt from US specs with the price working further ahead during the early afternoon. Some algo activity was also present as Oct’24 reached a high at 18.37 but having topped out the frailty of this small trader/algo driven movement was again clear to see with long liquidation erasing gains at a more rapid speed than they had been made. The price fell back down through 18.00 and it was a case of “as you were” for the market moving into the final couple of hours. Small efforts were made to push back above 18.00 during the final hour and having traded wither side of this mark a settlement was reached at 18.03, sending the market into the weekend still firmly within the range.
Some brief lower prints around the opening did not draw any fresh selling in and so the market stabilised to show small gains during the first part of the morning against light consumer/end user buying. This set in motion a slow but steady recovery which extended to $519.30 by the end of the morning, nothing spectacular but drawing prices away from the bottom of the range. A small setback preceded another push upward with some more short covering taking place as the price accelerated to $524.00, though that proved to be the top of the market, and a retreat followed once the buying eased. The pullback gathered pace to wipe out most of the days gains and it was only during the final 90 minutes that Oct’24 garnered some new buying to stabilise once more. As with recent days there was not proving to be much movement for the white premium and spreads, as Oct/Oct’24 chopped either side of $120.00 while the Oct/Dec’24 widened slightly to sit at $7.50 late in the afternoon. The closing stages were relatively calm save for small efforts at influencing the direction of settlement, with last buying winning out to ensure we went into the weekend showing modest gains, Oct’24 settling at $516.70.
