There was some early buying / hedge lifting inspired by the pullback from 19c however it merely served to support values through the early stages with no other buying emerging to take things along in a more sustainable way. By mid-morning the necessary hedging had concluded and so smaller traders looked to explore the lower end as path of least resistance, and it did not take long for their efforts to bear fruit as the price dropped back to the 18.30’s. Last week saw lows at 17.86, and so meaningful pricing orders remained a distance away with the consumer sector mostly holding back in the hope of pricing nearer to this mark. It was not until the early afternoon that the selling gained fresh pace, sending the market steadily lower until reaching 18.00. The psychological factor did encourage more supportive buying to emerge, and this was able to hold for the rest of the session without there ever appearing to be any prospect of a bounce. It was only during the closing minutes that the price nudged back up slightly on position squaring, leaving Oct’24 heading into the weekend at 18.10 and under pressure.
An opening push up to $527.80 was almost instantly forgotten and though Oct’24 clung on to token gains through the early part of the session there was a sense of foreboding that yesterday’s weakness would endure. By mid-morning this started to play out with the price pushed through yesterdays mark and working down to $521.00, placing the technical picture back into sell mode. It took until the afternoon and the increased spec activity that it brings for the market to fall again, the movement being largely unspectacular but accruing sizable losses over several hours to an eventual low at $513.40, the cheapest Oct’24 price since the end of May. Despite these losses the white premium was having a firmer session due to the No.11 situation, with trades around $117.00 seen latter in the afternoon. The spreads were losing value with the longer dated prompts holding more of their value, with the headline Oct/Dec’24 spread into $8.00 at the end of the session. There was the usual array of pre-wekeend position squaring which pulled values away from the lows in the final 10 minutes, though a closing value of $515.80 does not look great and will be of concern to longs.
