Daily Market Price Updates and Commentary 24th February 2025

May’25 was trading within a point of Fridays highs on the opening however no further progress was achievable through the early part of the session with the market settling down to sit in the lower 19.80’s. With Friday’s COT report showing another mild reduction in the speculative net short position to stand at -102,878 lots there remains a significant live short holding despite a further proportion likely to have been covered as the market rose since Wednesday. This was not influencing the market too much today however with the psychological 20c mark proving a tricky hurdle to overcome, and while the early afternoon saw renewed efforts to extend this month’s rally further still it merely yielded a single point as May’25 printed to 19.97 before sliding to new daily lows as small traders liquidated into very limited buying. This fall in the May’25 value did have a positive impact at the very top of the board by extending the March/May’25 price to 1.53 points, maintaining the likelihood of a strong spread value into this Fridays expiry. Having slipped back to 19.61 the May’25 contract attempted to dig in but found little willing support and so was unable to climb back through the range. Instead, there was some additional pressure applied through the closing stages which knocked the value through to 19.52 on the call, and while a settlement at 19.57 doesn’t reverse the current trend the fact that the market has gained more than 330 points in the past 5 weeks may mean we see some cooling of the rally for the time being.  

The recent strong trend for the whites has continued unabated, though early trading today did see the progress pause as May’25 slipped back into the upper $550’s and experienced a period of quiet consolidation. By the end of the morning the picture enlivened with a fresh push higher with the force of buying sufficient to bring the value through Fridays highs in the hope of further progressing the current movement. Nothing was proving straightforward however and a dip followed during the early afternoon before a second effort sent the price through to $562.90. This movement also failed to find continuation interest and so as the day traders let go of long another pullback took place, only this time it was more dramatic with the price dropping back to new daily lows. Despite the losses there were still positives being taken by the market with the May/May’25 white premium performing positively and trading up towards $124.00, suggesting that progress was being hindered by the weaker No.11. The market did attempt to pull away from the lows only to suffer another blow during the final 20 minutes as it was sold down to $553.60 before settling at $554.70. May/May’25 settled at $123.25 with May/Aug’25 at $17.80, and while the flat price was lower it does not damage the technical picture which has shown remarkable progress over recent weeks.