Summer 08 seems to be moving up, but the reason it is funny is that it is on very small volumes. Traders looking at Summers and Winter always tend to trade the front season (in this case Winter 07), Summer being at a lower price and with less physical demand tends to trade less, and at this time of year it will follow its counterparts rather than be analysed and set the pace. In three weeks time this will start to change as Winter 07 stops being tradeable.

The bold play on Summer is to ignore it, and trade the individual months or even day ahead. But this is not without its risks and something which players are not always happy to do. As such the sellers can afford to play it a little cool and step back from the sellers.