Everyone

Expiration day in the natural gas pit had a little something foreveryone Monday. While bears were greeted yesterday morning by alower open that paved the way for declines to the $1.80 level,aggressive afternoon buying put a smile on bull-traders’ faces asit led the April contract back above Friday’s best levels. But whenall the dust had settled and the final settlement price was handeddown from the data room at Nymex, neither bull nor bear could claimthe see-saw battle as a victory or a defeat. April finished downjust 0.2 cents at $1.852 and the May contract echoed that sentimentclosing 0.2 cents lower to $1.883.

Despite strong performance by TransCanada’s transmissionbusiness, like most everyone else the company took a hit toyear-end earnings due to flagging commodity prices. TransCanadareported net earnings before unusual charges of $575 million 1998,down 8% from $620 million for fiscal 1997. Net earnings afterunusual charges, for the year ended Dec. 31, 1998 were $355 millioncompared to $522 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 1997.

It seemed that virtually everyone in the gas trading communitywas glad to bid a not-so-fond farewell to a September fraught withhurricane hassles and get on with an October in which theaftermarket is starting out very strongly. Swing deals being doneWednesday for today’s flow generally ranged from 10 to 20 centsabove bidweek averages. Late quotes for October baseload also wererebounding after most points had sunk steadily to the bottom end oftheir ranges.