Posted: September 18, 2026, 2:07 pm

It’s Fall, or is it?

Parts of the Upper Midwest have felt like fall this week with temps in the 60s and bright sunshine, followed by a gloomy rainy Friday. Apparently this fall weather some of us are experiencing is the exception, not the rule. Looking below, day-ahead LMP pricing for the on-peak hours hit triple digits, like the weather, on most MISO and PJM trading hubs. We’ve mentioned this numerous times so we will just give it a passing shout…..maintenance, earlier setting sun, and hot fall days are not great for ISO grid operators.

Both PJM and MISO have issued Max Generation warnings over the last couple days, with the potential very real for this afternoon (Friday) as well. This has put generators and demand response that participate in the capacity market to be ready to go if and when called upon.

The Rumors of Demise….

In the world we live in today, if you fancy a good protest, you can find just about anything. Be advised though, today’s topic of outrage might become tomorrow’s growing trend. Case in point is nuclear energy. If you have been alive for three years, you have lived through some sort of angst over nuclear power, while below the age of three, not so much as the fears and outrage have slowed. As we pondered this, perhaps the turning point was when Canyon Diablo in California was ordered to stay open?

We bring this up because it was announced last week that the world produced more nuclear energy in 2025 than any year prior. Looking at the chart below, the wave was pushed by Asia and North America, while Europe muddled along. Given some of the discussions out of Europe and NA, it’s fair to assume 2026 will set another record. This is a far cry from the anti-nuke rhetoric of a couple years ago. Dare we say, another example of the world prioritizing Google searches over all other?

Natural Gas Market Commentary

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Natural gas futures remained in purgatory this week, with the front of the curve drifting aimlessly just south of $3.00 per MMBtu as the eroding storage surplus provides support against otherwise loose near-term fundamentals. Beyond October, the Winter 2026-27 strip continues to slowly drift to new multi-year lows, this week nudging just below $3.30 per MMBtu for the first time since early 2022. That strip ticked as high as $4.76 in March before trending steadily lower through the spring and summer.

Generally, the market seems comfortable with the fundamental backdrop even as summer lingers and power generation demand prevents the type of robust storage builds that are typical at this point in the season. Last week saw an injection of just 44 Bcf, roughly half the storage addition recorded for the same week in 2025, pulling inventories even further behind year-ago levels. The surplus to the five-year average is eroding as well, from nearly 200 Bcf in early August to 118 Bcf as of September 11. Still, there appears to be no major concern across the market, as it is only a matter of time before the heat breaks and inventories are allowed to fill to perfectly adequate levels ahead of winter.

There will be fireworks and excitement in the U.S. gas market in the months to come, but for now, all remains relatively quiet even as the rest of the energy complex sees major swings and volatility. Enjoy it while it lasts, because winter is coming.

Cocktail Corner

One of the original Cocktail Corner’s was born of “the bond market always knows”. This was in reference to some credit default swaps in Oracle as the perception was they were becoming over leveraged with AI, specifically data centers.

This week we’d like to revisit that thought, but not with our words. A post from Hedgeye. If you don’t know Hedgeye, it’s the creation of former hedge fund manager Keith McCullough and loaded with sharp minds. We have no affiliation with the exception of being a reader. Again, no commentary from us, we are just going to present the read….