It was another quiet morning in the market as May’23 crept along in the 19.90’s, a neutral showing in line with recent expectations and wider macro which was having a mixed day. By noon there was a little more buying emerging which enabled values to tick up a little further, leading some spec interest to enter proceedings and push May’23 to 20.12. This turned out to be a preamble to the main event as soon afterwards a more vigorous spec push sent the price up to 2-week highs and triggered buy stops which extended the spike to 20.32 before pausing, an unexpected move given just how quiet the rest of the session had been. Efforts to continue the push relented and led to some day trader liquidation, however with specs keen to preserve the sentiment of the strongest showing since marking contract highs at the start of this month the environment remained supportive. As buying persisted into the later afternoon so we saw another set of session highs which peaked at 20.40 ahead of the call, with a strong settlement recorded at 20.34 which will have longs keenly eyeing up a challenge of the 21.52 contract high tomorrow. With just three days now remaining until expiry March’23 remains generally firm, though the spread has narrowed over recent days and today traded down at 1.22 points before ending at 1.24 points. Open interest now stands at 53.754 lots, a modest number at this stage that suggests we will see a moderate volume tendered.
Market apathy has reached such a level that we saw barely any movement for today’s opening, a situation which maintained through the morning with May’23 nudging up to $569.00 but on limited volume. A little more buying came into the May’23 with the US morning getting underway however with spread volume and the rest of the board generally quiet there was nothing to really spark interest. It was with some surprise that the afternoon saw a spec push upward, which though driven by the No.11 took May’23 rapidly to new life of contract highs at $578.30 before pausing. Inevitably this drew some profit taking in which led prices back down by a few dollars, though the overall sentiment was now more positive and so some supportive buying remained in place. As mentioned, there was very little spread volume being seen through the session and though May/Aug’23 printed to $18.50 this was simply a factor of the May’23 flat price and limited spread selling coming together. White premium values meanwhile remained away from their highs as May/May’23 edged along between $128 and $130, though here also there was very little actually trading. The later afternoon saw prices edge back up towards the earlier highs until some late position squaring left May’23 settling at $574.70, a strong price though not quite so good as it would have been had it settled above the previous contract highs.
