Dominated

The eastern two-thirds of the United States will continue to be dominated by colder-than-normal temperatures through April, while the West can look forward to warmer weather, according to the latest seasonal forecast from Andover, MA-based WSI Corp.

Following major spikes everywhere to open the trading week, the market was mixed Tuesday but dominated by mostly mild softness. A 34.4-cent giveback by December futures Monday proved more influential to cash traders than the prospects of increasing cold weather later this week.

The market finally had to acknowledge the fact that its large gains that dominated the first three trading days of the week lacked validating support from generally moderate weather fundamentals. Also feeling highly negative guidance from previous day’s futures loss of 27.6 cents, cash prices fell by double-digit amounts across the board Thursday.

Near-flat numbers again dominated Wednesday’s cash market, but small gains were outpacing small losses considerably more than on the previous day. The fundamental rationale for minor firmness was elusive; although warming trends were predicted for Thursday in the Midwest and Rockies, mid-summer cooling load would still remain relatively moderate in most areas outside the south-central U.S. through interior California.

Most prices in the East were little changed either up or down Friday, while significant losses dominated at a majority of Midcontinent and non-Rockies western points. The overall softness reflected a continuing dearth of weather-based demand along with the previous day’s 4.1-cent descent by June futures and the usual weekend decline of industrial load.

Temperatures in the Southeast are likely to remain warmer than normal through April, but much of the rest of the country will be dominated by colder-than-normal temperatures for the next three months, according to forecaster WSI Corp. of Andover, MA.

Temperatures in the Southeast are likely to remain warmer than normal for the next three months, but much of the rest of the country will be dominated by colder-than-normal temperatures during that time, according to forecaster WSI Corp. of Andover, MA.

Ending a rocky week of commodity and equity market ups and downs that was dominated by news of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the sales of Merrill Lynch and Constellation Energy, October natural gas futures on Friday ended up quietly closing at $7.531, down 9 cents on the day but 16.5 cents higher than the previous week’s close.

As a couple of producers had expected (see Daily GPI, May 9), softness dominated the cash market Friday. A cooling trend in the Northeast proved to be short-lived, and while weather-based demand was growing a bit here and there, the overall temperature picture remained fairly moderate. A 6.4-cent futures loss the day before and the drop of industrial load during a weekend contributed to the general bearishness.