The day started lower with May´23 trading down to 22.22, however such is the positive sentiment in place that this was quickly picked up to bring the market back to unchanged within the first hour. A further shot in the arm was received with a move onward to the 22.50 area, where things then calmed to allow the market the opportunity to consolidate/build a base for a potential challenge of 22.63. With the start of the US day only bringing a small additional impetus the market started to see a touch more volatility as day traders and algo´s took centre stage with a small washout being followed by a sharp push to 22.60, where there was sufficient selling in place to prevent further gains. The spreads meanwhile served to provide the bulk of the volume and May/Jul´23 was again well traded wither side of 0.40c having found a level at which most participants are content. Flat price activity was limited to the centre of the range through the rest of the afternoon, eventually ending a touch higher at 22.47, still well poised to continue challenging higher after an inside day.
There was early volatility as an initial fall in price was gathered back up by longs to bring May´23 back up towards the mid $630´s, an area from which it could consolidate again while maintaining the technical strength. A small push further then saw the price work up towards $638.00, however by now any additional progress was being hampered by the spreads which were moving in a contrarian manner to the flat price. May/Aug´23 was finding a decent volume of rolling that endured through most of the session, and with the outright seemingly happy to hold the range on low volume this pushed into a $6.40 low mid afternoon though strengthened back by a dollar later in the session. The movements did allow Aug´23 to maintain a very positive sheen as it traded within 0.20c of its own contract high at $630.50. Moving calmly into the close we saw settlements made at $636.80 (May´23) and $629.40 (Aug´23), still positive numbers in spite of a calmer macro, showing that the longs have no desire to let go of the market just yet.
