Daily Market Price Updates and Commentary 4th March 2025

There was a familiarity about early trading as sellers instantly put May’25 under pressure and sent the price hurtling towards 18.00. Lows were recorded at 18.03 as end user pricing arrived to provide the base for consolidation, and this enabled the market to track along sideways for much of the morning on relatively low volume. This provided the basis during the late morning for the market to work its way back to a small credit and reach 18.28, however such is the negative sentiment at the present time that the market was not able to venture beyond this mark despite further efforts in amongst the choppy trading that came with the start of the Americas morning. These failures encouraged the day traders to push from the short side again as the afternoon moved on and the latest decline saw 18.00 breeched and lows at 17.94, though the presence of some better consumer / end user scales prevented any further losses from being recorded. More short covering saw the price move back above 18.00 during the final couple of hours, though overall it remained a negative day as prices stagnated ahead of the close. Spreads were calm as the post March’25 expiry sees the flat price taking most of the interest, with May/Jul’25 sitting between 0.31 and 0.38 points throughout. May’25 ended the day at 18.10 following the usual closing shenanigans, holding at 18c level as it looks to stem the decline but with no proof yet that the spec selling pressure has come to an end.  

There were more losses as we got underway with May’25 following the recent trend with a morning decline to $521.00. The market was at least beginning to find more support having fallen back so far from the highs and this ensured that the rest of the morning / early afternoon played out ahead of this low mark with the price briefly moving up into the green at $525.80 as traders looked to stem the flow of losses. For a period, it seemed that this may be the case as the market maintained the morning range, however sentiment is such that when the lows gave way during the afternoon we experienced another leg downward, and the move extended to $516.40. This latest loss was the first that has had a notable impact upon the white premium value with the whites losing ground at a faster rate than No.11 and dropping May/May’25 back to the $119 area, though the same could not be said of the spreads where May/Aug’25 was trading up to $19.20 during the afternoon. Although the market did not trade any lower during the final three hours there was very little bounce to be had to leave values tracking quietly ahead of the lows. May’25 eventually reached settlement at $518.00 to complete a fifth successive negative day and maintain the pressure.