Like a bouncing ball, natural gas futures continued to chopsideways yesterday as scale down buyers took advantage of lowprices afforded them by the market’s dip Wednesday. The Augustcontract finished up 3.3 cents at $2.179, and in doing so continuedits five-day streak of alternating advances and losses.

No fresh news was seen to influence the market Thursday and as aresult traders were forced to glean what they could from old news.Several traders agreed the American Gas Association storage report,which said 59 Bcf was injected into storage last week, was asupportive feature in the market. But while Ed Kennedy ofMiami-based Pioneer Futures does not believe the report necessarilyhurt the market, he also does not believe it played much of afactor in the price advance. Instead, he points to aggressive scaledown industrial buying that entered the market in the low $2.10s asa major reason for the market’s strength. “It is no secret thatnatural gas typically makes its yearly lows between mid-July andmid-August. The market has found a very solid level of support at$2.10 and every time August tries to break through that level thevolume of the buying picks up.

Does that mean we’ve seen our summer low? Possibly, says Kennedywho warns that while we could still move lower, the weather mightcome into picture again. “There are some models that call for aridge of high pressure to move into the East for end of July. It isstill too early to tell, but if that happens it would certainlygive the market a bullish push,” he reasoned.

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