Not even a late, short-covering rally could take it away from bears Wednesday. It was their day. In addition to slipping 2 cents to close at $4.227, the November futures contract completed the bearish trifecta by notching both a lower low and lower high for the session. The only thing shaky about the down-move was that it came on light estimated volume of just 61,313 contracts.

With volume weak, local traders found it easy to push prices around Wednesday. However, they may have paid a price for that market-moving power as prices moved fluidly higher on a late round of speculative short-covering. The November contract rallied about a nickel during the last 30 minutes of trading Wednesday, a large gain considering its trading range Wednesday was only 11.5 cents.

Looking ahead, it is a good bet the market will move at least 11.5 cents following the release of fresh storage news at 10:30 this morning. The question is only, “in which direction?” Taking into account last week’s hurricane-related shut-ins, most market-watchers expect the report to feature a 30-50 Bcf net build. If that estimate is correct, it will compare bullishly against last year’s Energy Information Administration estimated injection of 70 Bcf. The five-year average is calculated as a 58 Bcf refill. Last Thursday, the market slipped nearly a dime after learning that a larger-than-expected 42 Bcf was added to underground stocks for the week ending Oct. 4.

Citing the difficulty in gauging the supply loss due to the storm versus the demand loss due to higher prices, Kyle Cooper of Salomon Smith admitted that he is not very confident with his 45-55 Bcf refill estimate. “Nonetheless, we have done our best to estimate the myriad of factors and simply hope to preserve our recent accuracy.”

However, Tim Evans of IFR Pegasus in New York bucks the 30-55 Bcf range of expectations and looks for a 60-70 Bcf refill. “Either our own estimate is flawed, or there is some bearish potential in the report as those banking on weak production from the Gulf of Mexico are disappointed,” he wrote in a note to customers Wednesday.

In daily technicals, Evans sees support at $4.17 and $4.13, with a break lower leading to a possible retest of failed resistance in the $3.96-4.02 area. On the upside, Evans sees resistance layered from Wednesday’s high at $4.27 through Tuesday’s top at $4.34.

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