Futures came under heavy follow-through selling pressure fromall segments of the market Friday, adding to a 14-cent lossregistered Thursday. Sources pointed to a weak cash market, whichwas joined by fresh bearish technicals late last week, as reasonsfor the decline. The November contract gapped lower Friday andtrended mostly lower throughout the session to settle at $2.191, a6.3 cent decline.

Sources cited the November contract’s inability to hold abovekey support at $2.27 as the first in a string of negative technicaldevelopments last week. After settling below support on Thursday,the spot month gapped dramatically lower on the open Friday.However, a Gulf Coast trader feels bullish traders were dealt theirmost serious blow when November settled below the 40-day movingaverage of $2.231 last Friday. “Fund groups watch the 40-day like ahawk. You can expect they will come out as big sellers on Monday.”

Tom Saal of Miami-based Pioneer Futures agrees non-commercialtraders now have motivation to initiate short postitions, but warnsthere could be a push to fill the chart gap up to $2.25 this week.”Ultimately though, this market is at the whim of the weather. Withthe exception of storms during September which spawned higherprices, this market has been drifting lower for awhile. Theforecasts are all in and they call for everything from an above toa below normal winter. This market might need an early cold spellto shake this downtrend.”

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