The latter was hit hard by the mild weather conditions in the U.S., which in March was associated with a below-average seasonal Heiznachfrage. Hence it was already in the week of 13-19th March to a first net storage of natural gas - about 1-2 weeks earlier than usual. Market participants focused after the expiry to weather returns to the still high level of output growth in the U.S.. A market surplus can only be avoided if natural gas is another energy resources (coal, oil) in power generation market share decline. This would not be at spot prices at $ 5.50 / MMBtu been the case. After the price collapse in recent weeks, however, have only about $ 4.00 / MMBtu paid, which makes natural gas relative to other energy sources an attractive alternative.
The movements of individual commodities led ultimately to the fact that among the major commodity indices, the S & P Goldman Sachs Comodity Index (GSCI) with gains of 1.9% is best struck. He was followed by the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI), which after all still grew 0.7% while the Dow Jones Commodity Index UBS (DJUBS) -1.2% with a slight loss had to be accepted. The relative development of the individual indexes are doing very well explained by their different sector weighting. It shall have the GSCI, the highest weighting of industry-related energy and industrial metals (78%), while the DJUBS there has allocated only about 51%. The opposite is true of the agricultural sector, the GSCI represents only 14% of the portfolio, compared to the DJUBS about 30%. Made a big difference in March and the different weightings for natural gas (DJUBS: 10%, GSCI: 4%; RICI: 3%), which earned the DJUBS a performance disadvantage over 1% compared to the other two indices.
GSCI sector weighting of various commodity indices (early 2010)
