Having pushed back above 20.00 yesterday on reinvigorated spec buying there was clearly a desire to try and maintain the momentum rather than fail in the same vein as recent efforts, borne out through the early push to 20.25 for March’23. Though progress then stalled the rest of the morning saw prices maintain comfortably within a few points of last nights closing level, showing far better than London whites with the heavier spec/algo involvement seen in No.11 providing the support. There was no assistance being provided by the wider macro with losses showing for most products, and while there was no desire from specs to sell new longs back out again so quickly the market increasingly struggled with day traders/algo’s drawn to the short side. Their momentum sent the price south through the rest of the afternoon, eventually recording a low at 19.68, producers meanwhile were still largely absent with only some limited early participation seen as their overhead scale orders were unmoved. End of day short covering / position squaring did lead prices to a sharp late recovery with a settlement level at 19.82, though having simply retraced yesterday’s movements the take home of this session is simply a re-affirmation that the market remains stuck to a range for the time being.
Trading was mixed during the early stages with March’23 moving either side of $560.00, longs looking to hold prices following yesterday’s resurgent showing while producer selling started to appear in slightly greater number overhead. With the funds not showing any real intent to buy and day traders possibly deterred by a generally weaker macro the market started to edge a bit lower through the rest of the morning, the mild retracement by no means critical though it again illustrated the recent struggles to maintain rallies. The arrival of traders in the Americas failed to bring any fresh support and in fact led to a quickening of the decline with recent longs being thrown back out and confining the price back to the lower $550’s once again. While our movements were largely being mirrored by No.11 there was some narrowing for white premium values with March/March’23 back to $112 and May/May’23 to $123.50 intra-day, although both picked back up during the later afternoon as the raws market come under greater pressure. The downward grind eventually led to session lows at $549.30 during the final hour, though unbelievable despite the large range this still ensured that the day registered as an inside day on the charts. Closing activity played out just above the lows with position squaring sending March’23 out at $551.60, offsetting yesterdays movements and leaving us within 2023’s broad $562/$527 range for a while longer.
