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’Natural gas comeback not exactly what it seems
Natural gas staged a small comeback last week, inciting some speculation within the blogosphere that a renewed bull market might be under way in the commodity. Evidence for this, say commenters, is the now heady height of the gas-to-oil ratio above the 20x mark.
The not-so-bullish case for energy prices
The bullish case for oil has been fairly well established by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Merrill Lynch at al.
But, as it turns out, there’s a convincing bearish case to be made too — and the man putting it forward most recently is Edward Morse,
Things looking ugly for the UNG
Last week, prominent oil-industry financier Matt Simmons, CEO of Simmons & Company International, weighed in on the UNG/commodity exchange-traded-fund (ETF) debate by posting the following missive to a handful of recipients:
Natgas imbalance warnings begin
From the Tennessee Gas Pipeline company on Thursday (our emphasis):
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company – Notice Text
DATE: AUGUST 13, 2009 9:00 AM CCT TO: ALL TENNESSEE
Natgas, literally under pressure
US natural gas prices are refusing to budge higher with the rest of the energy complex:
This has led some to wonder why, especially since natgas rig counts are actually decreasing. According to Baker Hughes,
Evil commodities speculators in the dock
The CFTC hearings into the evil commodity speculators have got under way in Washington. Those testifying on Tuesday include:
Panel One: Jeff Sprecher, Intercontinental Exchange and Terry Duffy,
UNG goes OTC
Bloomberg reports the United States Natural Gas exchange traded-fund, which has been buying Nymex and ICE natural gas swaps since at least the beginning of June, has now been pushed into the world of OTC bilateral swaps.
Oil/gas ratio likely to stay high
The epic flows of the last few months into the United States Natural Gas Fund ETF may be very counter-intuitive as far as predicting an upturn in the price of natural gas.
That, at least, is the message from Goldman Sachs on Wednesday,
USO/UNG ETF managers ask CFTC for exemption on position limits
Filed with the CFTC on June 16th (H/T Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix), emphasis FT Alphaville’s:
Read the full document here.
Related links:
Cramer doesn’t get the UNG – FT Alphaville
Cramer doesn’t get the UNG
Jim Cramer, the over-excited host of Mad Money on CNBC, has finally stumbled upon the problems affecting some ETFs – namely the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG). And as can be expected, he’s outraged.
More weirdness in the UNG
The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) exchange-traded continues to mystify, this time by cutting positions over the last few days just when you would expect it not t0: that is, the day that natural gas futures soared by 8.43 per cent (see below chart).
The problem with commodity ETFs
The day ahead of the United States Natural Gas (UNG) ETF’s futures roll from the July to August contract, Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix — who has inadvertently become a bit of a lone crusader in the mission to expose the influence of exchange traded funds on commodity markets — presents an impressive summary of the story so far.
Strange things still afoot in natural gas
Stephen Schork, author of energy industry newsletter The Schork Report, has been pondering long and hard about the subject of natural gas on Tuesday.
You see, the historic correlations appear to be a little out of whack.
United States Oil Fund, redux
We noted on Monday to what degree the United States Oil Fund (USO) ETF had reduced its positions in WTI front-month futures since February and how that has coincided with a not disproportionate build-up in positions of the United States Natural Gas fund (UNG),
Commodity ETF investors move significantly into natural gas
The USO ETF’s command of the WTI crude market has taken a breathtaking drop in the last few months. Having held close to 100,000 WTI contracts at the end of February (amounting to nearly 20 per cent of the WTI market) it has now halved to some 50,000 contracts.
Super-natural gas
There have been some strange goings-on in the US natgas market, according to Stephen Schork of the Schork Report. Note the charts below.
That’s certainly a somewhat sudden and swift correction downwards in the price of natural gas futures on the Nymex exchange,
Anything but therm in the US
Natural gas prices in the United States are falling, and falling much more than usual. The benchmark Henry Hub contract traded on Nymex closed at six-year lows of $3.840 per mmBtu on Tuesday, even despite below-average temperatures which are usually supportive to prices.