The market had a much calmer start today with initial buying quickly giving way to allow for some consolidation to take place just a few points beneath unchanged levels. Volumes were incredibly light during the early part of the day and showed little improvement throughout the morning as prices simply edged along, further evidence that the recent failures to sustain above 20c have taken much of the impetus from the market. This directionless trading was maintained through into the afternoon with prices edging lower on the limited volume, though a degree of support emerged ahead of last weeks lows in the vicinity of 19.50 to halt the decline. The price action then began to move back up through the range on still low volumes, with movements becoming a little more rapid as the buying pushed through the thin environment to re-challenge the morning highs. This widened nearby spreads out by a few points but achieved little else as the progress stalled ahead of 19.80, keeping prices in positive ground though without providing any reason to believe that the upside has any new potential. The closing stages remained to the upper end of the range with March’23 heading into the weekend a few points firmer at 19.72, leaving the wider picture still unchanged.
Early losses were maintained throughout a calm morning, the market continuing to feel somewhat weary but lacking the kind of volume / interest required to inspire a meaningful move in either direction. The picture only began to change as we moved into the afternoon and in keeping with recent days it was the downside that was examined with modest selling of both March’23 and the March/May’23 spread extending this week’s movements to $541.30 and $13.70 respectively. Moderate buying from consumer scale interest was present at the lower end and this allowed prices to consolidate before rallying quickly against some very light buying / short covering, the move from $543.30 to $547.90 being made against just 170 lots. Efforts were then made to dig in and record additional gains however the market was unable to build and so much of the final two hours played out with token net gains being maintained. The picture changed as we reached the close with some very light book squaring sending March’23 to a marginally lower settlement at $546.40 to maintain the current neutral picture into the weekend.
