Speculators who got into the natural gas exchange traded fund (ETF) in the hopes of capitalizing on its rolling of futures contracts got hit instead. The speculators thought that the roll would send prices down, so they shorted October gas.
United States Natural Gas (NYSEArca: UNG) rolled its October contracts and bought November contracts on Sept. 14. The roll will wrap up today, reports Asjylyn Loder for Bloomberg. John Hyland, chief investment officer for the fund, said that the speculators had “only a random chance of being right.”
Meanwhile, it was widely expected that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would move in on the energy sector first, but the CFTC revoked position limit exemptions in wheat and corn for two Deutsche Bank AG PowerShares commodity funds: PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (NYSEArca: DBC) and PowerShares DB Agriculture (NYSEArca: DBA), effective at the end of October, writes Nevil C. Speer for Cattle Network.