An expiration-day nosedive by the February futures contract,chilly but unremarkable weather for this time of year (despitesnowfall and icing in some northern market areas), and the prospectof more small storage withdrawal reports in coming weeks kept bearsin command of the cash market Monday.
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Chilly Northeast Leads Recovery From Weekend Declines
The cash market made a strong rebound Monday from the weekend’sprice plunge as nearly every point rose by 15 cents or more. Inmost cases the gains did not recover all of the price territorythat had been lost Friday. However, the Northeast—one of the fewregions seeing any weather close to resemblingwinter —didmanage to make up for just about all of Friday’s citygate declines.
East Prices Softer While Chilly West Hangs Tough
The East-West divergence in price tendencies was repeated againTuesday in a slightly different way. While Monday’s overall uptickshad been most pronounced in the West, eastern markets retreated byabout a nickel Tuesday as Western markets managed mostly flat tobarely-off-a-penny performances.