With the holiday today I am going to limit the commentary in the Weekly and Daily. The range traded on October 2nd was $3.402 – $3.585. November managed a higher close on Tuesday ($3.519) but volume was about 60,000 contracts less than the 10/02 reversal day. After extending the recovery to $3.550, .03 short of last week’s high, November collapsed (putting another high volume reversal day in place and further defining and strengthening the resistance zone. Total open interest fell on both the 10/02 and 10/08 reversal days, which strongly suggests that short covering and contract liquidation were significant contributing factors. Simply put, there was not nearly enough buying interest for prompt gas above $3.500 to support further extension of the rally or to prevent the significant reversals to the downside.
For the last nine weeks November has been confined in a well – defined range between +/- $3.10 and $3.50. The last weekly close outside that range was the first Friday of August. Last week, since trading the two daily lows that began construction of the lower boundary of the range, the current prompt has been briefly offered below that lower boundary twice…consecutive days on 09/22 & 23, and has now failed twice above the upper boundary. This week’s lowest close with the highest volume of any week during the consolidation is an indication that November will be offered lower again.