The problem with trading forward

16 November 2006

Market a little lacklustre with players slack to tighten spreads and trading small amounts of spark spreads. Sellers appear to have gone to sleep and the relentless buyers are having to bridge the bid offer spread.

In a forwards market players have the opportunity to concentrate on sections of the curve. Generally speaking the back-end rarely gets a look in and the front end is heavily traded. Yesterday the front end was heavily traded, Q1 07, Dec and January and February all posted losses. This was gas led as the market fell off on mild winter weather low demand and high levels of supply.

The BBL testing is likely to go ahead on Monday of next week and we could see further selling. Ironically at the moment we have seen players buying the spark spread and so power has risen as the gas has fallen. Alot of the power rise is due to a lack of tightening up on the spreads and buyers having to lift offers. Liquidity is an issue which was not around two months ago and there is a fear that Christmas has come early with traders packing up and celebrating early.


Gas  Forward Curve  Weather 

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