Every conversation I’ve had today with people from Nashville to Toronto has started with how cold it is outside. After the shock of the cold and when the heating bills come due, the conversation may turn to how expensive heat was in January. That, of course, is at least for those who don’t invest in commodities to offset price spikes.
After natural gas posted the biggest one-day gain of 9.2% on Jan 24, 2014 since June 14, 2012, the S&P GSCI Natural Gas has gained 19.3% this year. It has gained 25.9% in just 10 days since Jan. 9, 2014 and is also up 44.6% since it’s low for the prior year on Nov. 4, 2013.
In the history of the index since Jan 8, 1994, it has been calculated on 5,053 days and only 39 of 5,053 days have had a higher gain than the 9.2% seen on Friday – that is only 0.77% of days. That puts Friday’s gain in the top 1% of big daily gains for the natural gas index. See the table below for days gaining more than 9.2%:
Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices. Data from Jan 1994 to Jan 2014. Past performance is not an indication of future results. This chart reflects hypothetical historical performance. Please see the Performance Disclosure at the end of this document for more information regarding the inherent limitations associated with backtested performance.