Dives

For a change Monday’s trading featured most Northeast locations taking big dives while prices recorded fairly strong increases at a large majority of other points. Most sections of the North American market can expect to endure some severe winter weather this week.

After taking dives a day earlier, Northeast citygates rebounded by fairly substantive amounts Wednesday as blizzard conditions continued to rage from the Mid-Atlantic though southern New England. However, nearly all of the rest of the cash market was flat to nearly 15 cents lower as the wintry weather penetrating a great deal of North America failed to have much impact on most prices.

After taking dives a day earlier, Northeast citygates rebounded by fairly substantive amounts Wednesday as blizzard conditions continued to rage from the Mid-Atlantic though southern New England. However, nearly all of the rest of the cash market was flat to nearly 15 cents lower as the wintry weather penetrating a great deal of North America failed to have much impact on most prices.

Predictably, cash numbers emulated the expiration-day plunge in May futures by taking swan dives themselves Thursday. A widespread dearth of significant weather-related demand only threw more fuel on the price fire sale, and the announcement of a sizeable storage injection heaped on a little extra bearishness in late business.

Much like last month’s swing market ended on Oct. 28, triple-digit price losses were the order of the day at all points Friday. Moderating weekend weather trends in the South, Midwest, Northeast and parts of the West, along with the previous day’s plunges in energy futures and the bearish psychology of record storage inventories, were chiefly responsible for the tremendous softening.

Much like last month’s swing market ended on Oct. 28, triple-digit price losses were the order of the day at all points Friday. Moderating weekend weather trends in the South, Midwest, Northeast and parts of the West, along with the previous day’s plunges in energy futures and the bearish psychology of record storage inventories, were chiefly responsible for the tremendous softening.

Cash prices cratered Friday with quite a few points taking dives of more than a dollar. The entire market — pressured by forecasts of widespread mild to cool weather that was entirely appropriate for early autumn, bountiful storage inventories and the normal slump of industrial load associated with a weekend — fell by around 55 cents or more, except for a couple of Gulf Coast pipes whose losses were limited to a little more than 30 cents.

In trading ranges that were stretched extensively due to post-storage report dives, cash prices were rather indecisive Thursday, ranging up and down from flat by up to a dime in both directions. Small gains tended to outweigh small losses.

Triple-digit plunges in the Rockies and San Juan Basin were greatly conspicuous among general flatness elsewhere in Wednesday’s trading. Only rarely did non-Rockies/San Juan points stray more than a few pennies up or down from unchanged as most of the nation was expected to continue seeing a mix of belated winter and springlike weather through at least Tuesday.