Daily Market Price Updates and Commentary 23rd April 2024

An unchanged opening soon gathered a little buying interest, allowing Jul’24 to push back up to 19.72 before pausing. The market then tracked along quietly for a period before making another effort higher during the later morning, extending the gains to 19.81 but failing to make any challenge of yesterdays mark despite a period of extended support. By early afternoon prices started to retreat into the range on buyer fatigue, and with day trader liquidation then following behind the price slipped sharply to opening levels. Volatility picked up during the early afternoon and new session lows were registered at 19.51 as the price swung against small trader activities, however the environment remained generally quiet with no sizable interest present to move values significantly either way. May/Jul’24 did rally during the afternoon to 0.25 points, but there was little else to get excited over as the market continued within established parameters. The final two hours saw an even tighter range holding to take the market calmly towards the close, and an equally quiet call saw Jul’24 ending the day at 19.66.

It was another positive start for the whites as Aug’24 found light buying to push ahead to $575.00, in the process immediately widening the Aug/Jul’24 white premium value back out to $140.00. Having struggled since this May’24 contract expired this week has seen a turnaround in fortunes at the top of the board with Aug’24 finding steady support, and in addition to the arb we were seeing gains for the spreads with Aug/Oct’24 pushing back above $20 while Aug/Dec’24 was up by $4 at $31.60. The market was unable to build any further and by noon the spot month was retreating into the range, though the spread / arb gains remained intact. A spike down to new session lows was just that and the trend remained sideways, a steady flow of activity for Aug’24 providing the only interest in an otherwise slow session. The range tightened during the final couple of hours to leave the day ending on a flat note, Aug’24 settling at $573.20 and the Aug/Jul’24 premium valued at $139.75.