Last week’s gains extended the run that started with the premium afforded the December contract. Total open interest had increased substantially (86,824 contracts over five trading days) while November faded from a 10/08 high at $3.550 to a 10/16 low of $2.922, likely due to aggressive speculative short selling. In the recent weeks prompt gas has closed higher in 10 of 15 trading days with a notable contribution from December’s premium over expired November ($.439), has traded almost $1.50 higher.
December would fail at well – defined resistance provided by the trend line declining from its March – June highs and its declining 20 week SMA. It didn’t. A trend line and moving average violation like that is a serious technical positive. Mentioned it at times during Oct with the Nov contract, but did not occur. During the rally from that above referenced October low open interest has fallen from 1,721,787 contracts to 1,556,062…165,725 (through the 11/06 close, open interest statistics lag one day), 75,982 of that during the five days ending 11/06. Over the sixteen trading days since the peak of open interest the total has fallen in all but one day. To this analyst this is a great example of a short covering run in prices.
