Memento mori, Memento mori, memento mori, memento mori.*
(I'm no classicist, see below)
From the CME:
Nat Gas looking past bearish inventory report
The EIA Nat Gas inventory report was a bit of a surprise with an underperformance in the weekly Nat Gas withdrawal level. The market sold off strongly once the data was released only to reverse back to the positive side of the ledger and near the highs of the day as market participants are looking toward next week's report which should show a significant draw from inventory.Here's today's action via FinViz:
In spite of the lower than expected withdrawal from inventory the market is already expecting well above normal inventory draws in the next two weekly reports. During the first half of January the total inventory gap versus both last year and the five year average is going to widen significantly and serve as a floor in prices at a minimum. The cold weather could serve as a catalyst to push the spot Nymex contract back above the $4.50/mmbtu level and remain above this key technical level for more than a day or so as we saw in the third week of December.
At the moment the spot contract is trading in the upper half of its current trading range and looking for upside momentum for an assault on the $4.50/mmbtu resistance level. So far the market is setting up as a key technical reversal today after making a new intraday low and currently trading near the high of the day.
One note of caution the market is still not back to full participation level as a result of the holidays and the snowstorm across the northeast today. The first part of next week's trading will be more representative as to the evolving market sentiment.
Today's EIA report was simply bearish versus the market consensus, the so called normal five year average and versus last year. The report showed a net withdrawal that was below the market consensus (97 versus 126), and less than last year and the five year average net withdrawal for the same period. The 97 BCF withdrawal (below normal for this time of the year) was about 29 BCF below the market consensus calling for a withdrawal of around 126 BCF. The draw of 97 BCF was well below my model forecast (131 BCF withdrawal) this week. The year over year inventory situation remains in a deficit position versus last year and remains in a deficit position versus the so called normal five year average. The current inventory deficit came in at 289 BCF versus the normal five year average or about a negative 8.9 percent....MUCH MORE
We're going higher over the next week or so.
*"Remember that you will die," a shorter version of "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!" i.e. Dude, look behind you, you're just a guy, remember-you'll die.
-Supposedly the words a slave whispered to a returning Roman general during his triumphal return.
Cambridge classicist Mary Beard makes a strong case against the simplistic popular conception in her book "The Roman Triumph".
From Friends of Classics Reviews:
...Balancing the enemy captives and bringing up the rear of the triumphal procession were the victorious general’s troops, chanting the mysterious “io triumpe”.
Less mysterious were the rude chants that the triumphing troops were licensed to direct at their general. Suetonius gives us a sample of what Caesar’s troops contributed: “Romans, watch your wives, the bald adulterer’s back home. You fucked away in Gaul the gold you borrowed here in Rome”.
Traditionally these chants have been seen as “apotropaic”, designed to ward off envy and the evil eye in the moment when the successful general was most vulnerable. This is consistent with what is perhaps the best-known aspect of the traditional picture of the triumph, the slave who supposedly stood behind the general in his chariot to remind him that he was not a god, by repeating the words “Look behind. Remember that you are a man”. In the film Quo Vadis? the slave’s words receive an unintended comic twist when they are delivered to a triumphing Marcus Vinicius as he ogles a pretty girl in the crowd (nothing wrong with Marcus Vinicius!).
Beard points out that the slave and his cautionary words have been cobbled together out of bits and pieces of evidence from different contexts and periods and that no single text gives us the whole picture. She is similarly sceptical about the modern theory that the triumphing general impersonated the god Jupiter Best and Greatest, dressed in the clothes of his cult statue and with his face similarly painted red.
The impersonation of the god, the admonitory slave and the apotropaic songs all make a tempting package, but the evidence for the triumphator’s impersonation of Jupiter is very slender. What we can say is that Roman authors of the late Republic and early Empire were particularly concerned with the line between the human and the divine, and with the problematic concept of the divine human. Eventually, the emperor would be hailed as a god and receive divine honours, but this would be a slow and difficult process....
