Despite beginning Tuesday’s regular trading session with another assault on the contract’s $9.91 high, September natural gas futures would get no closer than the $9.89 it posted at the market’s open.

Instead, prompt-month natural gas zig-zagged for the remainder of the session, logging a $9.48 low trade before settling at $9.683, up 11.9 cents from Monday.

Petroleum futures put in another mixed day of activity, with October crude, in its first day of trading as front month, settling just 6 cents higher at $65.71/bbl. September unleaded gasoline recorded a less than 1-cent drop to close at $1.8580/gallon, while September heating oil closed less than a cent higher at $1.8194/gallon.

“The market is acting very weird,” said Ed Kennedy of Commercial Brokerage Corp. in Miami. “A lot of really good trading indicators have been meaningless. This market just ignores them. Trading volume is also very light and price movement is erratic, sporadic and thin. It really moves around on nothing. There’s nothing really here. These movements are being made on air.”

Despite the low trading volume, Kennedy said talk of locals taking summer vacation has nothing to do with the wide swings. “I don’t think that has anything to do with our current situation,” he said. “I think people make way too much out of that. You have to remember, no trading desk ever goes empty.

“The trading is really scary,” Kennedy continued. “Buy or sell it to try to make a nickel and you are risking 25 cents. It is brutal. This is a very strange market that appears to be ignoring fundamentals and technicals. There is something atypical about it.”

Traders looking to the weather forecast for support of their bullish aspirations shouldn’t count their chickens just yet. Short-run weather forecasts by the National Weather Service suggest that weather bulls may have a hard time finding the heat and humidity that have proved so useful in supporting natural gas prices. The large energy markets of the Mid-Atlantic and industrial Midwest are forecast to enjoy a reprieve this week from the oppressive conditions that had caused record electrical loads and increased use of natural gas to drive power generation.

For the week ending Aug. 27, the NWS forecasts 32 cooling degree days (CDD), or four less than normal, for the Great Lakes states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, and 39 CDD, or only one more than normal, for New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

To date, the Great Lakes states have labored under 758 CDD –172 more than normal. New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have endured 740 CDD, a whopping 203 more than normal.

While near-term weather doesn’t appear ready to support elevated prices, storm activity in the Atlantic Basin might be able to pick up the slack. Tropical Depression Jose was downgraded from tropical storm classification overnight Monday as it moved ashore on the Mexican Gulf Coast. However, the National Hurricane Center said it has located Tropical Depression 12 forming over the southeastern Bahamas.

Weather 2000 pointed out that tropical storms continue to form and develop at an all-time record pace, rivaling the historic 1995, 1936 and 1933 seasons. “Oceanographic, atmospheric and steering conditions still point toward a continued active, intense and land-threatening 2005 season,” the forecasting firm said.

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