Normally natural gas futures are influenced by a hodgepodge offactors: storage, technicals, support, resistance, supply anddemand. Of course last week was anything but normal as a hurricanewhich the market has not seen the likes of since Andrew, wasbearing down on the Gulf of Mexico leaving a wide swath ofdestruction in its wake. Now the question to be answered is whetherHurricane Georges (pronounced ZHORZH) will not only live in theminds of residents of Florida and the Carribean Islands, but alsoin the memories of natural gas traders. That was still a very murkyquestion as of Friday. One thing was becoming evident late lastweek: October’s expiration today will be anything but normal. But,despite the continued threat of storm, the October actually slipped0.2 cents to settle at $2.181 on Friday.

The market snapped to attention on Friday as a round ofspeculative buying prompted the October contract to $2.335, beforeafternoon profit-taking left it nearly unchanged for the day. AHouston trader felt the market’s inability to retest resistance at$2.35 was discouraging for the bulls in the intermediate-term.”That could turn out to be a bearish factor once the hurricane isgone.”

But, nobody was eager to become a bear or a bull Fridayafternoon, another source observed. “The risk is too high over theweekend. You could go long and find out Monday morning that thestorm is a non-factor, gas is coming back up, and you were justdealt a 20 cent loss on your position. Or, you could short themarket only to go home over the weekend and watch the hurricaneintensify to a category 4 that is bearing down on Galveston. Bothof those situations would be hard to explain to your risk manageron Monday.”

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