Influences

Prices continued to tumble Tuesday as bearish influences remained in play: widespread moderate weather, negative futures guidance and the growing lack of storage space to stash gas not needed for current burns.

In an effort to dispel criticism and enlighten the ignorant about what influences natural gas futures prices and volatility, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) will release a special report sometime this month showing that hedge funds represented less than 10% of the natural gas futures trading volume this year between January and Aug. 31, 2004.

In an effort to dispel criticism and enlighten the ignorant about what influences natural gas futures prices and volatility, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) will release a special report in January showing that hedge funds represented less than 10% of the natural gas futures trading volume this year between January and Aug. 31.

Beset by negative influences from several directions, prices plummeted across the board Friday with drops approaching or exceeding a dollar in many instances. But hold the phone on those predictions earlier this week that there was almost no chance of a cash market rally between now and the end of the month. One appeared to be shaping up for Monday’s trading.

Beset by negative influences from several directions, prices plummeted across the board Friday with drops approaching or exceeding a dollar in many instances. But hold the phone on those predictions earlier this week that there was almost no chance of a cash market rally between now and the end of the month. One appeared to be shaping up for Monday’s trading.

Falling power generation load in the South, mild to cool weather in northern market areas, and the previous day’s weakness in energy futures added up to a softer cash market Thursday. A few points were close to flat, but most recorded losses ranging from about a nickel to nearly 20 cents. A majority of declines were in the vicinity of a dime.

With energy futures softness from the day before weighing on Wednesday’s cash market, there wasn’t enough air conditioning load left across the southern tier of states to keep prices from experiencing mostly mild losses. Quotes ranged from flat to down about a quarter; most losses were less than a dime.

Seeing little change in fundamental influences, Tuesday’s market was almost a repeat of the day before. Most points were again close to flat, with some ranging to a little more than a dime up or down. The primary difference was that softening trends showed up more often Tuesday.

Finding little of significance in new price influences upon emerging from the Easter weekend, virtually all of the cash market was content to mark time Monday. Outside of declines ranging to nearly a quarter in the Rockies, most other points stayed within about a nickel up or down from flat. There was a slight bias to the upside.