The day started with a wobble lower, maintaining the unconvincing showing from late yesterday as the price dropped back to the lower 19.20’s. This has muddled sentiment within the market and though the price moved back higher as smaller traders continue to manoeuvre around there was not the conviction seen over past sessions and the move topped out near to 19.50 once the daily losses had been erased. Activity was proving to be limited from the trade, and so when the small traders turned back to the short side during the afternoon it had a noteworthy impact and sent the price to new daily lows. An element of consumer scale pricing was identified on the fall and the market gathered without challenging the 19c area, however the signals being sent were that the specs are reluctant to re-commit following their recent short covering. Spreads saw steady volume with Oct’24/March’25 trading around 22,000 lots as rolling interest picks up ahead of the index roll, and only this prevented the market from registering a very low volume. There was the usual array of position squaring which left Oct’24 settling away from the lows at 19.24, though overall it was a disappointing effort which likely confines the market to rangebound trading again in the near term.
Oct’24 traded down to $535.50 on the opening and remained in deficit through the first couple of hours despite clambering away from this low mark. Volumes were light outside of the front month spread and so as a little more buying emerged there was a sharp reaction up to $547.00, but despite holding this area for a period there was no sign that the required buying to push ahead would be forthcoming. Long liquidation sent us back to unchanged early in the afternoon and from this point onward the recent whites sentiment took over with prices working lower across the rest of the session. The one area not showing weakness was the Oct/Dec’24 spread which traded higher on the day and reached $13.90 at one stage, though by late afternoon much of this gain had erased and we were trading back at $10.30. Session lows were recorded at $535.30 late in the afternoon before a late push away from the lows on short covering re-emphasised the low liquidity ahead of Oct’24 settlement at $539.10. White premiums were quiet throughout but did regain a little of the lost ground from yesterday as Oct/Oct’24 closed at $115.00.
