Like a politician in an election year, the natural gas futuremarket had something for everyone yesterday as prices spiraledhigher early in the session on storm hype and short covering onlyto crumble at the end on slightly bearish storage numbers.

The October contracted sauntered into expiration, off 1.2 centsfor the day but up a remarkable 66.9 cents from where it was whenit became the prompt contract less than a month ago

Several traders were impressed by the market’s ability to spiralhigher Wednesday morning following Tuesday’s profit-taking. “Ithought you would get some follow-through selling, a Northeasttrader admitted. ” If I were long, I would have headed for theexit. But hey, maybe that’s why I wasn’t long in the first place.”

With little else to explain the markets behavior Wednesday,traders were once again forced to blame the price movement on thetropical weather outlook. While still more than 1,200 miles east ofthe Leeward Islands in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Joyce becamemore than a blip on traders’ radar yesterday when she wasclassified as a category I hurricane with winds up to 85 mph.Moreover, Joyce is considered a factor because the forecasted trackof the storm is due west, which puts the storm on course for theGulf of Mexico. Also having an impact yesterday, traders agreed,was the development of another ominous-looking low pressure systemin the northwestern Caribbean Sea that had become better organizedand could continue to strengthen, the National Hurricane Centersaid yesterday evening.

However, even with the bevy of activity in the tropics, tradersfound it difficult to ignore the latest storage report. Accordingto the American Gas Association, 77 Bcf was injected intounderground storage facilities last week, bringing the totalworking gas in storage to 2,402 or 73% full. Although the injectionfell short of last year’s 79 Bcf refill, it was deemed neutral tobearish because it narrowly exceeded the 60-76 Bcf range of marketexpectations. On that news, October futures tumbled during the lasthour of trading to carve out a $5.28 low moments for expiring.

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