Daily Market Price Updates and Commentary 26th February 2025

There was optimism following yesterday’s recovery that the market may finally be in position to make the move beyond 20c, and initial highs at 19.97 did not dispel this belief. Through most of the morning May’25 consolidated quietly just beneath this market to maintain the stability, however there was a contrarian factor being seen at the very top of the board where March’25 was feeling some strong pressure which led the March/May’25 spread back down to 1.23 points. By late morning, this factor started to pull the rest of the board lower with May’25 slipping down to 19.67 by early afternoon before looking to stabilize. This enabled the losses to be stemmed for a while but there was no significant recovery following, and when the spread came under another wave of selling pressure, so the market gave back additional ground. May’25 saw lows at 19.51 and while the flat price moved sideways across the final couple of hours March/May’25 slipped all the way to 1.00 points just ahead of the close. There was MOC buying for the spread which boosted the differential back by a small amount to settle at 1.05 points, while May’25 was also a small way off its lows at 19.59. Overall, this ensured an inside day on the charts, and while it will disappoint the longs it does not damage the wider structure in any noteworthy way.

The market started solidly with opening trades seeing May’25 within 0.10c of yesterday’s high at $564.20, however there was not the scale of buying necessary to push higher and so the market proceeded to tick along in the lower $560’s. This pattern endured until late morning, but while it seemed that traders may have been teeing things up for a push from the Americas the market proved unable to hold station with the period either side of noon seeing May’25 drop all the way back to the $556.00 area. This dented confidence amongst the smaller traders, and it was not to return as additional struggles were encountered by the flat price through the afternoon which resulted in another new low at $554.20. The scale of flat price selling in the spot month made a dent in the spread values with May/Aug’25 dropping back to $16.00, however the white premium was largely unaffected with May/May’25 trading a little bit higher on the day before settling down in the $123.50 area later in the afternoon. All remained quiet until the closing stages when May’25 was knocked back to $537.20, with settlement made a dollar above at $538.20 following the usual MOC activities. This left May/Aug’25 settling at $16.50 and the May/May’25 arbitrage valued at $122.80 as we move forward with parameters still unchanged despite the stalling progress this week.