After all the volatility surrounding the May Nymex contract oflate, the spot month spent what is typically one of any contract’smost volatile trading days (its expiration) by slipping only 0.4cents to settle Tuesday at $2.262. A trader said late strengthpushed June and the rest of the outmonths up a couple of cents forthe day, and noted May would have expired with a gain, had it notbeen for a fund dumping a large position within the last 30 minutesof trading.

One analyst expects June to continue creeping higher whentrading resumes today. “Technically, June is clearly in a shortterm down trend, but I think you’ll see [futures] prices pop here alittle. Bids for May bidweek gas at the Henry Hub are alreadycoming in the low $2.30s, and it looks like that will be bid higher[this] morning,” he said.

However, the analyst expects any such upmove to be tempered byresistance at $2.38, and by the fact that many traders will likelyremain on the sidelines in anticipation of the AGA storage report,to be release this evening. “Just look what happened last week,when the report came in above expectations. The market shot nearly16 cents lower. Of course, May may have had more room to fall then,but if traders perceive this next report to be bearish, I wouldn’tbe surprised to see a pretty quick move to major support in the$2.22-24 area,” he said.

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