A moderately higher start soon grew to an early 19.49 as the market gathered momentum versus the strong start to the London whites. Prices remained in the 19.40’s for a period without managing to make additional progress and by later morning the buying had eased to leave values tracking quietly along in the upper 19.30’s. With the current range seeing few resting orders there was a fall to 19.20 against low volume selling, though this appeared to be day traders attempting to manufacture interest, with the lack of reaction leading the market back to the 19.30’s soon after on position squaring. The arrival of US traders served to widen the range with fresh spec selling sending the price lower, and while there was no meltdown the following hours saw Jul’24 as low at 19.10 to again explore the scale support towards the lower end of the range. In keeping with recent days at the first sign of real volume there was a reaction from day traders with short covering seeing the price back above 19.40 during the final hour. Volumes did pick up during the afternoon due to the Jul/Oct’24 spread, though outright interest remained thin as Jul’24 dropped back off to another neutral settlement at 19.25.
The whites have proved more resilient than No.11 over recent sessions and despite seeing a flat performance yesterday there was some immediate enthusiasm to test towards the recent highs as Aug’24 spiked to $575.60 during the first 15 minutes on just 700 lots. Such gains were unlikely to continue, and the market soon settled down to a more familiar consolidation pattern with the remainder of the morning spent quietly holding the lower/mid $570’s awaiting / hoping for some more dynamic input. There was a drop back to unchanged early in the afternoon however this did not generate any additional selling, and another period of consolidation ensued. Repeating the earlier pattern there was a further drop later in the afternoon to a daily low $566.50, however this too was ended by short covering and on this occasion its impact was more significant with the value moving back towards the highs during the final hour. This final period proved more volatile with prices swing around the range, with a settlement finally made for Aug’24 at $570.50. Again, the white premiums were firmer with the underlying white strength seeing Aug/Jul’24 above $146.00 late on, while Aug/Oct’24 ended the day solidly and settled at $24.
