Monday, January 23, 2012

Short squeeze

A classic short squeeze. We had lots of initiated (new) short last week, which increased the open interest on Feb contract on Nat gas. As we're approaching to the contract expiration this week, people tightened their stops.

Overnight on Sunday the contract was down a lot not to mention gapped down scaring people away, which is when institutions start taking profits, which in turn makes it drift higher and higher. It then triggered buy stops (exit shorts), which makes NG shoots to +0.25ish in a matter of mins. (Isn't it always very easy to explain after the the fact??)

I say this is a short squeeze because this makes the open interest go down, but also it came off the high shortly after quickly dying every min. Another thing to look at is the spread between contracts.

What's more important is that longer term contracts have gained than near term ones. News shows that the biggest nat gas driller decided to cut down production immediately and the last week's baker hughes report reads the rig count went down again.

What do producers do when price go down and they don't make money? They cut supplies. Supply goes down and price goes higher. And that's what I'm here for. Granted, it'll take a very long time and I don't think we'll see $10+ gas, but certainly higher than where we're now. Markets are very very efficient about what's likely happen in the future.

Today, NG shot up with the continuation of the yesterday's move, but quickly faded. It'll keep going down to see if there's any buyer. Hopefully a higher low or a double bottom. I can't do anything until the Feb Options expire on Thursday. I hope we have a thrust move to upside, so that I can utilize more options. I'll talk more about this later.

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