Advances

Fueled by Tuesday afternoon advances, the November contractraced out to a strong start on Wednesday. But the rally becameshort-lived when it met with a wall of selling in the mid-teens,leaving the market to finish lower at the closing bell. TheNovember contract settled at $2.041, a 4.3 cent decline for theday.

Change in the electric industry will mirror what took place inthe gas industry following deregulation and the introduction ofcompetition, particularly with regard to trading, Enron PresidentJeffrey K. Skilling told attendees at Ernst &amp Young LLP’s ninthannual Energy Conference last week in Houston.

Change in the electric industry will mirror what took place inthe gas industry following deregulation and the introduction ofcompetition, particularly with regard to trading, Enron PresidentJeffrey K. Skilling told attendees at Ernst & Young LLP’s ninthannual Energy Conference in Houston Tuesday.

The futures market continued to spike higher at Nymex yesterday,adding to advances that have lifted the October contract 36.3 centssince last week. October finished the day up 11.8 cents to settleat $2.241. In doing so, natural gas futures set a new daily volumerecord with an estimated 142,867 contracts changing hands.

Bulls have not had much to smile about in the last five monthsat the New York Mercantile Exchange, so it was to their surpriseand delight when a trio of factors — storage, technicals, andanother possible tropical storm — combined to lift the marketThursday. The three remaining months in 1998 all received an almostequal boost with October edging out the others slightly byadvancing 6 cents to settle at $1.712 in moderate trading activity.

Like an immovable object the downtrend weighed on the futuresmarket again on Thursday, completely erasing advances made earlierin the week. That left the September contract down 4.2 cents to$1.831, but more importantly the prompt month continues to plodtoward substantive support in the $1.78-81 area, causing tradersto wonder if that level will hold or be merely a speed bump.