The day began slowly with the market continuing the pattern set last week of tight trading ranges centred around the teens for March’24. There was little volume being seen versus physicals on wither side of the market and so prices remained little changed as we reached noon. Light selling then emerged and sent March’24 down to 27.07 as we moved into the US morning, where spec buying emerged to quickly reverse the losses and set the price moving to new daily highs. Fridays COT report showed a small increase in the net speculative long position to 190,586 lots, a position which is likely only lightly changed since with the market having held flat over the three sessions that followed, however that did not deter the specs from continuing to push from the long side through the afternoon. March’24 climbed steadily to reach 27.50 before falling back into the range against profit taking, however the dips were being well supported with the longs determined to take the market away from the recent lows. To this end they were successful with a late push sending the price spiking to 27.60 on the call as more sizable buying was thrown into the mix. Settlement was made at 27.56 and longs will no doubt be keen to keep building though similar recent moves have capped out and at present it remains to be seen if the necessary trade buying can be found to make this effort any different from yet another range swing. 
The week commenced with some light buying enabling moderate gains to be made, with March’24 edging to the upper $730’s where the price meandered along quietly. The cam was broken by a small nudge down to $735.40 early in the afternoon, however the sentiment was proving to be more positive that seen during last week and so things soon turned around with a push beyond $740 and new daily highs. There have been few reasons to be positive over the past week however the specs appeared attuned to attempting higher again and their efforts through the afternoon enabled March’24 to reach the $745.00 area before stalling. It was not just the flat price which saw positive moves with the white premiums also benefitting from the buying as March/March’24 traded above $139.00 and May/May’24 to $150.00. Prices slipped back from the highs during the later afternoon against day trader liquidation however a final twist saw another wave of spec buying force March’24 to a new high $747.40 on the close, with settlement made just below at $746.40 to set the market well for a challenge of the upper end of the recent tight band. 
