The Mar NG contract, in the first minute of trading on Sunday night, traded exactly 1,000 times. Interesting.

I believe position limits for Mar NG come into effect by open Monday 24th so effectively close Friday 21st.

Tuesday 25th is penultimate, which on top of all the normal options expiring, there are massive amounts of financial Mar-Apr Spread Options expiring/settling based upon Tuesdays Close.

Wednesday 26th is expiration.

I suspect this all means that Fri 21st, Mon 24th, Tue 25th could all be interesting days.

SMCJB 

Tuesday 25th is penultimate, which on top of all the normal options expiring, there are massive amounts of financial Mar-Apr Spread Options expiring/settling based upon Tuesdays Close. Wednesday 26th is expiration. I suspect this all means that Fri 21st, Mon 24th, Tue 25th could all be interesting days.

That's for sure. Couple of data points, which exclude the ICE, OTC and non-vanilla stuff mentioned above:

Current open interest for NYMEX NG American style options is 369K. 226K of them are March.
Current open interest for NYMEX NG European style options is 5.3 million. 1 million of them are March.

SMCJB 

I believe position limits for Mar NG come into effect by open Monday 24th so effectively close Friday 21st. Tuesday 25th is penultimate, which on top of all the normal options expiring, there are massive amounts of financial Mar-Apr Spread Options expiring/settling based upon Tuesdays Close. Wednesday 26th is expiration. I suspect this all means that Fri 21st, Mon 24th, Tue 25th could all be interesting days.

Why not the 26th? Feb was up .524 on expiration day.

ron99 

Why not the 26th? Feb was up .524 on expiration day.

Expiration used to be one of the most volatile days of the month but since they significantly changed the position limits I would have said (never researched this so have no statistical evidence to back up my gut feel) that expiration is now one of the least volatile days, as nobody caries positions any more.

Saying that your right last expiry (Feb) was one of the most volatile trading days in years so your right, Wednesday 26th definitely could be a roller coaster as well.

Just looking at the latest ICE settlements for physical gas at various locations around the country for Balance of February (ie Feb 21-28)

Northeast
Algonquin $23.355 +$3.40
TETCO M3 $11.75 +$2.75
Transco Z6 $12.50 +$1.00

Midwest
Chicago $14.50 +$5.00
Michcon $16.05 +$5.75

Gulf
Henry $7.34 $0.81
HSC $6.60 +$0.82

West
PG&E $6.55 +$0.54
Rockies $6.80 +$0.89
Socal Border $6.555 +$0.645

SMCJB 

Just looking at the latest ICE settlements for physical gas at various locations around the country for Balance of February (ie Feb 21-28)

Hi - Are those Balmo figures available only to those with a paid subscription to one of the ICE data products? I can get a summary report of the ICE day-ahead market, but summary reports for the balance of month (fixed price) and forward basis trades appear to be subscription-only.

CafeGrande 

Hi - Are those Balmo figures available only to those with a paid subscription to one of the ICE data products? I can get a summary report of the ICE day-ahead market, but summary reports for the balance of month (fixed price) and forward basis trades appear to be subscription-only.

I'm not sure. I have an ICE subscription and they are emailed to me every day. There are a lot of reports available on the website but I can't seem to find the exact reports I am getting.

You can get some reports but they are PDFs. Go to the data site and select " End of Day Reports", then "ICE Futures US - Energy", and "DMR-IFED Futures" and then under contract select what you want (or even all)

For example if you select contract ALS you will get the Algonquin Swing Swap report and you can see the $23.355 prices for balance of the month I mentioned previously.

liquidcci 

NG trending really well. It is trading like CL use to trade. Hope it keeps up for a while.

I tried trading this market, but myself found it was not as easy to trade as CL. The liquidity was a low at the time I was trading it, that may have been a big factor. Hows the liquidity for you folks trading it now? do you see a lot of gapping in the market and apart from the weather how would you describe the way this market trades? I'd be interested in some of your opinions on this. Thanks.

sands 

I tried trading this market, but myself found it was not as easy to trade as CL. The liquidity was a low at the time I was trading it, that may have been a big factor. Hows the liquidity for you folks trading it now? do you see a lot of gapping in the market and apart from the weather how would you describe the way this market trades? I'd be interested in some of your opinions on this. Thanks.

I assume you are talking about NG? Natural Gas is extremely volatile/choppy/gappy what ever you want to call it. Huge 10% moves day after day. If your looking to 'try out NG' for lack of a better expression i would suggest you wait until next Thursday 27th once March has expired and hopefully some normality returns to the market.