It is often said markets can fall twice as fast as they rise,and that has never been more evident than it was in the natural gasfutures market over the past two weeks. After all, what took bullsfive and a half days to produce, took the bears just two and a halfto knock down. With a 7.8-cent decline to settle at $2.444, theJanuary contract was 26 cents below Monday’s highs and 0.2 centsbelow its Dec. 10 settle.

Sources continued to point to private forecasts calling formoderating temperatures as a reason for the price slide. “[EarthsatCorp.] predicts the jet stream will assume a less severe dip intothe central U.S. and that will push the Arctic air back up intoCanada,” a Chicago-area buyer said. That is a dramatic change frominitial reports that suggested the deep trough in the jet streamwould be with us for some time, she continued.

However, a Gulf trader believes the market had already begun tofactor in the bearish weather news earlier in the week andyesterday’s price movement was just follow-through selling. “We gota reconfirmation of the weather model [Wednesday] morning andover-the-counter trading reacted immediately. It started off at$2.50 and just kept falling: $2.47, forty-six, forty-five. Then themarket gapped lower on the open and it was all down from there.”

However, the day may have concluded on a positive note for thebulls. According to the American Gas Association, 116 Bcf waspulled from underground storage facilities last week, dropping thetotal to 2,743 Bcf, or 84% full. That withdrawal came in slightlyabove the 90-110 in preliminary market expectations and well abovelast year’s 85 Bcf draw-down.

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