Jul’24 began the session by trading a little lower, however the price soon worked to a small credit as traders looked to build upon yesterday’s steady performance. The efforts to maintain the recovery hit a blip with some long liquidation sending the price back to 19.38 at one point, though the market soon regathered itself to be trading at new daily highs by the time that Americas traders came online. These gains were maintained with Jul’24 stabilising in the mid 19.60’s, and with the London whites by now pushing ahead on technical strength the specs continued to push in search of new recent highs of our own. Their efforts were rewarded as Jul’24 pushed through 19.92 to record its highest value since mid-April, a more significant milestone than it may seem for a market which has been struggling to reverse fortunes. Having seen the net spec short grow to -48,407 lots last week there was undeniably some short covering being seen as day traders continued to force the issue by sending the price towards 20.00 during the final hour. Scale selling provided resistance to limit the gains to this exact level, though trading near to the highs on the close will add to nervousness amongst shorts by generating a technically strong close. Jul’24 settled at 19.95 with Jul/Oct’24 at 0.02 points premium, leaving the market primed to try and look beyond 20.00 tomorrow.
Resuming after the long weekend the market was initially rather muted with Aug’24 tracking along little changed, a weaker than expected start considering the gains made by No.11 yesterday. More unexpected was the dip which followed midway through the morning to send Aug’24 down to $566.00 while the Aug/Jul’24 arb lost a chunk of the recent gains and was valued at $139.00. The flat price did not struggle for too long and by noon Aug’24 had pushed back above $570.00 to provide a basis from which it could look to push ahead with the aid of US specs. This duly occurred with Aug’24 setting off on a path to challenge the 3-week high at $577.50 and trade beyond. Movement was steady throughout the rest of the afternoon with the market progressing to highs at $585.50 ahead of the close, ad in the process reinvigorating the spreads and premiums. Highs were recorded for Aug/Oct’24 at $26.00 while the Aug/Jul’24 arb found itself back out to $145.00 with the assistance of the flat price strength. There was no let up from the buyers and new daily highs were recorded at $586.40 around the close, leading to a strong settlement value of $585.70 and the potential for additional near-term gains.
