Category: Weekly Detail

Going to Set Some Rules and Ranges

Weekly Continuous

Momentarily, I thought my analysis last week in the Weekly was spot on as the differential between Feb and Mar narrowed down under $.30 for a very brief period of time. After the previous week’s weak close, the market strongly suggested February would be offered lower (hence the confidence in closing the differential). It was almost a given that any rally by the suddenly oversold prompt would be sold at a lower high. Surprisingly, February recovered as much as it did, but not surprised when it reversed lower from $2.884 (the continuation 20 – week SMA was $2.877). The violated daily trend line and important moving averages provided daily closing resistance but little else can be drawn from the wide ranging days other than the to date calendar January trade low is higher than the December low.

It is difficult to put a bullish spin on the price action last week but the March chart develops a few factors that serve to mitigate an overly bearish outlook. Perhaps the most significant of those is that March is sitting atop support that is more distinctly defined than at any time since the spring of 2020,(see March chart below) and before that during the late winter/early spring of 2016. Won’t spend a lot of time on those historical levels of support and how they were tested and held, currently, but long time readers will hopefully recall long past discussions of the consistency of prompt gas to trade in four year cycles. While not always exact…some a little longer, some not quite as long, that cycle can easily be observed since the beginning of natural gas trading in the spring of 1990…most recently 2012, 2016, 2020…2024??

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Ya Think the Bias Is Bearish

Weekly Continuous

More often than not a price spike with a significant contribution from short covering is followed by a price vacuum once the buying that caused it is exhausted, and at least a retracement of the gain. A decline of $.794 (nearly 25% of price at last week’s close) would be considered outside the range of expectations of this analyst. Rather than opening higher after the three day weekend, February was immediately offered $.20/dt lower. There was no gap because of the wide daily ranges of last week’s rally, but the best February could do was a trade to $3.189 ($.124 below the previous Friday’s well – bid close-which turned out to be the high for the week. There was a short – lived bounce off the 50 – day SMA but nothing that resembled one at the trend line drawn from the December lows, which I had thought would guide success prompts higher. Nope- February fell unabated through multiple levels of conventional, moving average, trend line and moving average support. By the week’s amply offered close , prompt gas had returned to the band of weekly closing support ($2.469 – $2.548) that has limited every decline since the recovery from the June low.

While volume was lower during the decline last week — I guess you could consider it kind of a dubious positive technical factor. Although less than a week earlier turnover was higher than average. It also certainly appeared that surviving speculative short sellers returned with a vengeance…open interest for the three trading days between Tuesday and Thursday (open interest statistics lag one day) increased 28,363 contracts. Were just setting up for the next round.

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Strong Finish –Trouble Brewing

Weekly Continuous

February quickly retreated toward targeted support ($2.600 and $2.700). After trading the low of the week($2.694) February recovered and developed a dramatic bout of short covering spiking to a high of $3.392 with exceptional volume. Having already traded a range of $.698…the widest range for any two days since the beginning of the collapse from the December ’22 high, February traded within Tuesday’s range ($2.884 – $3.392) for the balance of the first full week of ’23, but again finished the week with a substantial bid. February posted its highest close since the first Friday of November, just short of the resistance presented by the lower boundary of a range the current prompt traded in from April through October which includes the gap left on the February chart on November 6th $3.635 – $3.681 and February’s 40 – week SMA…which it failed at twice before breaking down. On a continuation basis prompt gas closed just below a band of weekly closing resistance between $3.330 and $3.473 ). The daily continuation gap is $3.407 – $3.452 and two standard deviations above the 20 – week SMA is $3.462. That represents a whole lot of areas to bring sellers back, Unless the prompt can extend its rally…as another strong weekly close suggests it will, after posting the highest daily close since 11/03 ($3.515), it is in danger of a short – term momentum divergence…and in any event is extremely short – term overbought. Expect selling.

Something that caught my eye and so I checked previous years and it failed to turned up any other year that there was anything close to the premium over March at February has at expiration. So, the question becomes whether February gives up much of that premium over its last nine trading days or March begins to catch up. Based on my comments and foregoing analysis of resistance, extension nearly two standard deviations above the twenty week and the extreme short – term overbought condition expect that February retreats from a challenge of the October highs to redefine support while March and the Q2 months begin to find more sponsorship.

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A Bullish Start to 2024

Weekly Continuous

The prompt opened at $2.605, creating a daily continuation gap above Friday’s high of $2.561 Despite February quickly filling the gap the indication that it had brought was validated by a reversal and follow through that left the prompt above January settlement and the first trading day of January high. Extension of the rally to test, and close above the continuation 50 – day (for the first time since 11/16), plus a weekly close above the 10, 20, and 40 – weeks SMAs AND the December high leaves $2.524 the odds on favorite for the January low.

While all of that bullish technical data points is important –it is not intended to suggest that prompt gas has kicked off on one of its periodic winter rocket rides, nor that the perennially amply offered February contract won’t back and fill from this first week of ‘24’s strong close. There is an abundance of well – defined resistance including but not limited to 50% retracement of the decline from the October – Q4 high and the violated trend line drawn from the April – May – June lows, between $2.906, the late Friday high of the holiday abbreviated week, and $3. It does suggest a change in the way traders are approaching the gas market from actively selling rallies to buying during bouts of weakness to test progressively higher levels of support. Since the 12/13 trade and reversal from $2.235 prompt gas has traded higher lows (defined as a higher low followed by a higher high) of $2.385 (12/19) and $2.412 (12/28) and now $2.524 (01/02) can be added to that list.

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First Action of New Year — History

Weekly Continuation

Have not sent a Weekly for two weeks due to the markets decision to trade in a fairly consistent range and that continues at the current writing. I wanted to share with the thoughts and history of a trader who provides me access to some of his thoughts during the year. I can promote and endorse his historical analysis as he has been tracking it since the gas market started trading in the early 1990’s,,,,

…each year at this time I write a review of what I came to call the January Phenomenon…because of its consistency and disproportional importance compared to the other eleven calendar months.  The following is not a lot different from the twenty five or so that it follows.

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Interesting Trade Week

Weekly Continuous

Prices almost formed a classic DOJI pattern in during the week– that is a pattern from the Candlestick analysis and I have talked about it occasionally here. The pattern is based upon the Japanese technical analysis that discusses the traders open at a price and then extend either higher or lower during the week only to give up the gains or declines by the end of the week to finish where the market started the week. The analysis is based upon the a military exercise where the gains in the beginning of an offensive are achieved but by the end of the period– all gains are given back.

Last week almost formed a good DOJI pattern but the price action did not go back up and close at the price level where prices opened the week. While close — it cannot qualify as a true DOJI week — so what does it mean one way or another — more importantly — what does it mean for the upcoming period?

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Catch a Falling Knife??

Weekly Continuous

While still suffering from whatever little kids spread amongst themselves, I hope you bear with this week’s Weekly analysis.

Last week in the Daily editions I mentioned several times about the potential of a short covering. Unfortunately, that did not happen at least not yet. Rather than a short covering rally failure to overcome the declining resistance triggered a high volume extension of the down trend through the November low ($2.669) for the seventh straight year (and 9 of the last 10 the November low has been violated during December) and support expected to be presented by the 200 – day SMA but did not happen. With still higher volume the highest volume day since the October high (678, 722 v 682,359 contracts, and before that the August high 805,853) January plunged to begin a test of substantial conventional support presented by the July/August/September lows, $2.463, $2.425, and $2.500, respectively. Check the Weekly chart below:

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Continued Bearish Bias

Weekly Continuation

Going to keep it brief this evening and will expand during the week as my granddaughter decided to give me her respiratory bug. Actually, not much to say except the element of trade that has kept the market from becoming grossly over sold is the premium that the new prompt brings after expiration of the previous contract. Will go into the specifics during the week but the market is oversold and is setting up for a reversal (doubt it will be today).

Major Support: $2.82-$2.78, $2.74, $2.608, $2.47, $2.00, $1.991-$1.96, $1.795-$1.766
Minor Support $2.68, $2.38-$2.26, $2.17
Major Resistance $3.00, $3.16, $3.48, $3.536, 3.59, $3.65

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Pushing Toward Major Support

Weekly Continuous

There are four trading days left in calendar November and the prompt has lost $.753/dt ( 21% from the 11/01 high to Friday’s close), while prompt – in – waiting January has lost $.842 as the premiums awarded deferred months continue to be compressed. This week’s low for January gas, $2.933 also happened to be the same as the contract’s low for the first week of June 2021.

With the weekly close only $.115 higher than the low close of 2023 and $.259 higher than the low close of 2021 (all weekly closes of ’22 were higher), the market may be providing opportunity to add to length. Note that December ’24 is currently priced at $4.039 making the “new” continuation strip certainly higher when December goes to settlement and is replaced. My thoughts are not to pay the premium that results from that replacement but rather to bide your time and wait for the premium in the differed contracts to dissipate while keeping a close eye on the support between those old continuation lows and the average settlement value of the last twelve months or so.

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Down– But Out???

Weekly Continuation

Since closing at $3.473 two weeks ago (the second highest weekly close of 2023) prompt gas has given up $.513/dt on a weekly closing basis. The rally from the March low to the October high ($3.630) has been retraced by a little over the 38.2% (Fibonacci retracement–technical level) but prompt gas remains above the intermediate term uptrend defining trend line rising from the April – May lows (Chart above). This trend line has been tested several times since the spring low. I would allow this as a pretty normal correction– 50% retracement of the rally is $2.787, which happens to be almost exactly the price needed to close the “expiration gap” left on 09/28 (natural gas abhors a vacuum). Prices declining will once again test the rising trend line (on a daily continuation basis the value of that trend line begins the week at $2.807) then test the 20 – week SMA (currently $2.832).

Technical thinking was that December would retreat to test support at the double bottom left on 10/03 and 10/23 (twin weekly lows at $3.216), the lower boundary of an orderly trading range. Indicators did not expect the gap lower on 11/06, a gap that remains open and confirms an RSI bearish momentum divergence. The combination of those technical factors suggests declines have not concluded.

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