Following a week of struggle the market began positively, grinding slowly higher through the morning to reach the mid 24.70’s and be trading above yesterdays highs. This strength was maintained ahead of the US-morning at which stage things took off with an acceleration through 25c on mixed buying from day trades/algo’s/specs. The reasons for the sudden turn higher were unclear, though with news reports that the El Nino could turn out to be a “super El Nino” its possible that specs were just punting the story and taking advantage of the holiday in Brazil which further limited selling in an already thin environment. While the pace of increase slowed the market maintained the strength throughout the rest of the afternoon, pushing onward to 25.41 while widening the nearby spreads back out to recoup some recent losses, Jul/Oct’23 working back to 0.41 points and Oct’23/March’23 to 0.23 points. There was a period of calm consolidation ahead of the close, though another aggressive buying run for the close saw the price spike to a high at 25.68, though such was the volatility that settlement was 20 points beneath this mark at 25.48. These are the highest levels since 30th May, and while it doesn’t signal a run to new highs just yet it does serve to hold the market comfortably within the broad range that has existed since the end of April.
Following seven days of decline we have been seeing the market looking to build a bottom, and on the back of yesterdays ‘higher low’ the market showed moderate gains to sit in the lower $670’s during early trading. There was another small pick-up during the later morning, and this left the picture looking positive ahead of the Americas day getting underway. What then followed was an unexpected but sharp acceleration higher to the mid-$680’s for Aug’23, which also provided a glint of positivity for Aug/Oct’23 with the spread widening back to $7.50. Further gains were registered as the afternoon progressed with a high seen at $690.20, an impressive $21 higher though tempered to a degree as it remains a distance shy of this weeks $696.20 high mark. The movements were in conjunction with No.11, and so white premium values showed little change, and both Aug/Jul’23 and Oct/Oct’23 spent the bulk of their day in the $128/$130 area. Heading through the later stages the market continued to hold near to the highs, with the day ending on another positive note, trading to a high at 692.60 during the post-close having settled at $688.80.
