The market has fou8nd itself confined to a range north of 19c this week, and early trading saw some moderate buying emerge to test upward again with Oct’24 reaching 19.57 before calming. Quiet consolidation then followed with an eventful session unfolding as the price traded wither side of 19.40 for several hours and not enlivening at all with the arrival of US traders as the specs mostly remain aside. Volume was again paltry despite some moderate Oct’24 position rolling, and while this situation should begin to change tomorrow as the early index movement arrives, there is likely to be little impact on a flat price that appears stuck. A sharp dip back into the teens arrived on just 2,000 lots of volume (day trader stops) to send the price negative for the day, and it remained here through the closing stages with nobody keen to pay back up. Close was reached at 19.22 while Oct’24/March’25 was valued at -0.31 points, limited change for both which leaves market parameters unchanged.
Today’s opening again proved interesting as Oct’24 leapt up to $543.60, and following a period of calm then progressed further to $544.70. Outright trading continues to be limited and this reflected in the rangebound nature of trading across the following hours, the only widening of the range seeing the overnight gap closed on the intra-day charts. This left the front spread to dominate proceedings with Oct/Dec’24 seeing approximately 70% of total volume as it continued to flit either side of $10 premium, while forward spread barely registered interest. The calm picture was only broken during the final two hours with a drop to $536.00, and the market struggled to come back from this with a quiet day concluding for Oct’24 at $536.80. Oct/Dec’24 closed near to its lows at $8.50 as rolling pressure grew, while despite seeing limited activity Oct/Oct’24 was valued lower at $113.00.
