Natural Gas Breakout is Imminent
Natural Gas has already been bullish over a trend duration (3 months or more) as it recovered from the Covid Global Deflation. Now Natural Gas is quietly setting up for a bullish TAIL Breakout, i.e. the start of the next bull market in energy and commodities.
To call the next commodity supercycle is a little early but we can see several factors hinting at that over the coming 1-3 years. Regardless, we need to trade the market in front of us, and as such we only really care about the next 3 months when it comes to near-term risk management.
Over the next 2-3 months I would not be surprised to see Natural Gas hit a multi-year high between $4 and $6. Given that inflation is non-linear and is really accelerating, its conceivable it could go to $10 in a major commodity reflation move.
Our Macro Nowcasting Machines with a 60-90% success rate in predicting growth and inflation 3-5 months out (the forecast gets more accurate the closer we get) says that Quad 2 growth and inflation accelerating will peak just before the summer. April-May time period. Following that will be a decelerating of growth and inflation, so we will have to risk manage that drawdown proactively. But we are not there yet so we must focus on Natural Gas's upside in the immediate term. The same holds true for commodities broadly, including uranium, fertilizer, agriculture, crude, and copper/industrial metals.
Looking at the 1H timeframe we can see a healthy consolidation of higher lows and volume/momentum indicators that are not near being overbought. The volatility signal shows volatility can go much lower which is a good thing for price. Breakout is imminent.
Looking at Natty through the lense of market positioning, the net long position in natty more than doubled the week before last (last week's data comes out tomorrow, will provide an update) which is a huge move. The 3month average net long was added in a single week. But the max net long position over 3Y lookback is 2.5x the current net long. In summary, Natty is not crowded, it is not a consensus position, and has significant upside.
If you haven't been hedging for inflation that last 5-10 months where have you been?
To call the next commodity supercycle is a little early but we can see several factors hinting at that over the coming 1-3 years. Regardless, we need to trade the market in front of us, and as such we only really care about the next 3 months when it comes to near-term risk management.
Over the next 2-3 months I would not be surprised to see Natural Gas hit a multi-year high between $4 and $6. Given that inflation is non-linear and is really accelerating, its conceivable it could go to $10 in a major commodity reflation move.
Our Macro Nowcasting Machines with a 60-90% success rate in predicting growth and inflation 3-5 months out (the forecast gets more accurate the closer we get) says that Quad 2 growth and inflation accelerating will peak just before the summer. April-May time period. Following that will be a decelerating of growth and inflation, so we will have to risk manage that drawdown proactively. But we are not there yet so we must focus on Natural Gas's upside in the immediate term. The same holds true for commodities broadly, including uranium, fertilizer, agriculture, crude, and copper/industrial metals.
Looking at the 1H timeframe we can see a healthy consolidation of higher lows and volume/momentum indicators that are not near being overbought. The volatility signal shows volatility can go much lower which is a good thing for price. Breakout is imminent.
Looking at Natty through the lense of market positioning, the net long position in natty more than doubled the week before last (last week's data comes out tomorrow, will provide an update) which is a huge move. The 3month average net long was added in a single week. But the max net long position over 3Y lookback is 2.5x the current net long. In summary, Natty is not crowded, it is not a consensus position, and has significant upside.
If you haven't been hedging for inflation that last 5-10 months where have you been?
Comment:
From a Macro Regime perspective, we are very obviously no longer in Quad 2 Reflation (growth and inflation accelerating at the same time). We have been transitioning into a hybrid regime where multiple macro Quadrants are competing for the dominant market regime. A mixture of goldilocks, deflation, and more recently the revival of stagflation. for the rest of 2021 my outlook is for stagflation to become the dominant regime in the 3rd or 4th quarter, potentially followed by a larger deflation, though we'll have to wait and see on all of that.
I'm still long of the Natty G. My signals says higher highs and higher lows are still in store. It is on the cusp of capturing a complete bullish formation (bullish trade, trend, AND tail), which is a bad risk if you're shorting Natural gas.