Moderately

A few flat to moderately higher points were in the mix, but for the most part cash prices saw no signs of a Monday rebound from the big weakness of weekend prices.

The cash market broke out of a lengthy pattern of volatile price movement for the most part Wednesday. Except for plunges of 60 cents to nearly two dollars in the Northeast, the rest of the market tended to range from slightly softer to 20 cents higher. A majority of the gains were less than a dime.

Flat to moderately lower Northeast/Appalachian numbers Wednesday ran against the grain of overall firmer spot prices in which gains were mostly small and quotes ranged from flat to more than 30 cents higher. Virtually all of the increases above a dime occurred at Rockies, Pacific Northwest and Northern California points, which are feeling a touch of winter from a Pacific storm.

Changing weather patterns helped produce a mixed cash market Monday, but gains that ranged up to about a quarter handily outweighed the flat to mildly lower points that were concentrated in the Midcontinent/Midwest.

The August aftermarket was launched Thursday with modest downturns at nearly every point. Malin, the PG&E citygate and a few Rockies points were flat to a couple of pennies higher; otherwise, declines ranged from about 2 cents to a dime.

Wednesday’s swing market was almost a mirror image of the previous day. This time single-digit declines dominated the price table instead of the increases by largely similar amounts recorded on Tuesday. One trader said the mild softness on Wednesday is what he actually had expected for both days.

Moderate softness continued to dominate most of the April swing market on its penultimate day of trading Monday. Cold fronts expected in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Midwest, along with thunderstorms and mountain snows in the Northwest, failed to provide the support needed to avert further price falls at most points.

The December aftermarket was launched on a moderately weak note Wednesday, with quotes for the first and second falling several cents below both end-of-November swing levels and monthly indexes in nearly all cases. The Rockies and California held up most strongly, ranging from flat to a few pennies higher and lower.

Pockets of flat to moderately higher prices in the West were more than offset Thursday by occasionally flat but mostly lower numbers elsewhere. Most of the losses were around a dime or less, but ranged as high as 15-25 cents at Northeast citygates.