Fueled by Tuesday afternoon advances, the November contractraced out to a strong start on Wednesday. But the rally becameshort-lived when it met with a wall of selling in the mid-teens,leaving the market to finish lower at the closing bell. TheNovember contract settled at $2.041, a 4.3 cent decline for theday.

Ed Kennedy of Miami-based Pioneer Futures thinks a combinationof high pipeline inventories and anxious sellers lingering justabove current levels could usher the market lower into the weekend”There was massive selling waiting in the mid-teens [Wednesday] andthe market will run into the same thing [Thursday] if it tries fora retest. Plus, rumors are already flying around about potentialOFOs [Thursday] and Friday. This is shaping up to be one of those’gas-better-have-a-home weekends.'”

He may be right about the potential for the market to trendlower, but first it will have to overcome a somewhat bullish AGAstorage report released last night. For the third week in a row theAGA estimated a refill of 41 Bcf and although that figure waslargely in line with industry estimates the in the previous tworeporting periods, it came in below nearly all predictions thisweek. The November contract took that as the impetus to post a3-cent gain in last night’s computer-only Access trading session.

©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press,Inc.