Do markets get it wrong

22 June 2005

Alice: "It would be so nice if something made sense for a change."

The prompt rose rapidly yesterday on gas fears with a pipeline in the forties field out of action and gas spiking to reflect this it did not take long for the power price to follow suit. The ripple on effect meant that July August and September rose rapidly to reflect a price situation if the pipe were to be out for that long. This is where the market has probably got things wrong......in that the pipe is unlikely to be out for three months. So you would not expect September to rise as rapidly as it has, the reason it has is that players have been spread trading September against either the Winter 05 or against Q3 or July or August. In order to maintain their spread they have had to buy more to prove the spread is working, in reality it is a serious breakdown in the correlation between July and September and some traders should see this and cut the position they have had. Cutting positions is a bold thing to do in any market but one with this volatility has to be done, or you could lose your shirt.


Gas  Supply  Spread  Volatility 

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