After a brief foray in negative territory, natural gas futuresbubbled higher yesterday, preserving bulls’ 6-day and countingstring of price advances. With yesterday’s 4.2-cent rise, the Junecontract has climbed almost 40 cents from $3.01 lows notched on May5. June closed at $3.396.

“Locals came into the week flat and were early sellers [Monday]when the market failed to open above Friday’s settle,” said TomSaal of Miami-based Pioneer Trading. That selling, however, wasthwarted by steady mid-morning commercial buying, he continued.

Looking ahead, the market waits in eager anticipation of freshstorage data set to be released this Wednesday by the American GasAssociation. Following last week’s extreme heat, which causeddegree day cooling calculations to double that of both last yearand the norm (44 DDC vs. 22 DDC), many traders believe Wednesday’sstorage report will show a very modest injection. Saal expects thereport to show a 63 Bcf refill, which, if realized would fall shortof last year’s 79 Bcf injection, and the 6-year average of 83 Bcf.

In daily technicals Saal targets Fibonacci resistance $3.458,which corresponds to a 61.8% retracement of the move from the $4.60high reached December 1996 to the $1.61 low from last August.

©Copyright 2000 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.