“Buy the rumor, buy Access; then sell on Thursday,” was onetrader’s variation on the almost clich‚ “buy the rumor, sell thefact” trading strategy. However, that variation would have beenprofitable considering the market’s price action both before andafter the release of the storage report Wednesday evening. Afterbounding as much as a dime higher in the regular open outcry andAccess trading sessions Wednesday, the futures market was shuffledlower yesterday. The July contract finished at $2.397, off a pennyfor the session.

No fresh news was seen to have an impact on prices in eitherdirection, leaving one Gulf trader to suggest that Thursday’s priceretracement was caused by light profit taking. Another sourceagreed, adding that there was some pressure for the cash andfutures markets to close some of the current price differential.That differential narrowed from almost 6 cents yesterday to about 4cents today.

One Houston marketer feels the market’s direction today will bea repeat of Thursday’s price action: weaker early in sympathy withcash, then recovering late to almost unchanged. The reason for thisprediction? Market perception about next week’s weather. “Theweather for the weekend is going to be mild. However, temperaturesare expected to warm up early next week. The last thing you want tobe is short over a weekend with warmer weather in the forecast,” heconcluded.

Looking ahead, he admitted that perception alone will not holdprices up forever. “At some point the market will find out whetherwarm weather will have a sizable impact on demand for gas. Nuclearutilization is high right now at 79.2% of total capacity. If demanddoes not increase when it does get hot, it will signal that thenukes are up to the task.” And that, he adds “could be a veryexpensive realization for this market.”

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