Bucking

Bucking the trend that has brought other companies’ merchant operations to the brink of disaster, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. on Tuesday reported that its energy trading earnings for the fourth quarter were up 33% from the same period of 2001, while overall, quarterly earnings rose more than 25%.

A day after bucking the industry trend and raising its annual dividend to $1.84 from $1.80, Cinergy Corp. said last Wednesday that favorable weather conditions and strong power demand in its Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky service territories in 2002 will enable it to beat Wall Street consensus earnings estimates of $2.55/share by about 10 cents/share, excluding one-time charges. The Cincinnati-based utility company also said 2003 earnings would be in line with expectations.

Natural gas futures traders have, over the course of the last decade, demonstrated the uncanny ability to look past an in-your-face fundamental indicator and focus instead on an obscure technical benchmark or their perception of data yet-to-be-released. Yesterday was a textbook example of the latter being played out as traders ignored another hefty storage injection to focus instead on their expectations of next week’s release. This was evident in the market’s price action late yesterday afternoon as the August contract rebounded from its pre-AGA lows to finish with a 6-cent gain at $3.342.

Bucking the overall trend in Canada of little to no progress on the electric competition front, Alberta and Ontario earned high marks in a recently released report issued by the Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM).

Bucking the overall trend in Canada of little to no progress on the electric competition front, Alberta and Ontario earned high marks in a recently released report issued by the Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM).

Bucking the current trend of building natural gas-fueled power plants, Reliant Energy Seward LLC — a unit of the Reliant Energy Wholesale Group — reported that it has plans in the works to build a power generating facility in western Pennsylvania that will use the latest clean-coal technology on waste coal.

Bucking the current trend of building natural gas-fueled powerplants, Reliant Energy Seward LLC — a unit of the Reliant EnergyWholesale Group — reported that it has plans in the works tobuild a power generating facility in western Pennsylvania that willuse the latest clean-coal technology on waste coal.

Bucking the tech trend, five-year-old electronic trader AltraEnergy Technologies Inc., coming off a year of trading and revenueincreases, expects to make it into the black in this first quarterof 2001.

Bucking the tech trend, five-year-old electronic trader AltraEnergy Technologies Inc., coming off a year of trading and revenueincreases, expects to make it into the black in this first quarterof 2001.