Movement

The cash market continued its break from the pattern of mixed pricing that prevailed every day last week. The direction of price movement was uniform at all points again Tuesday, but this time it was down instead of up. Moderating weather trends in the Midwest, to be duplicated to a lesser extent over the rest of the week in the Northeast, combined with the pre-existing scarcity of heating load in the South to ease overall spot gas demand.

Friday’s cash trading activity was largely a repeat of that on Thursday: mixed price movement with most points averaging flat or only a few pennies up or down and small gains handily outweighing small losses. Frigid weather outside the South and a five-trading day streak of prior futures advances (which barely got extended by 2.8 cents Friday) were the chief impetus for overall slight firmness.

Price movement was mixed Thursday but displayed a distinct bias toward the upside. Significant heating load was scarce across much of the South, but increasing in the Northeast and West while mostly standing pat in the Midwest. The cash market also had support from a March futures contract that has been on the rise since the previous Thursday.

Except for the direction of movement, Thursday’s price changes generally resembled those that opened the week. But this time the direction was down — way down — as the market bowed to approaching relief from a devastating heat wave in key northern markets and a slightly diminished threat of Tropical Storm Chris to the Gulf of Mexico production area.

Through Thursday of last week there were at least a few exceptions to general price movement, but on Friday all points were united in one direction: down by double-digit amounts.

Thursday’s trading for end-of-March flows was a near-repeat of the day before — generally modest price movement both up and down, with South and East Texas joining Northeast citygates in seeing much of the softening and gains being recorded at almost all points in the Midcontinent and West.

The cash market clung to flat to slightly higher numbers at a few points Tuesday, but the predominant direction of price movement was downward. Although the weather picture continued to look fairly wintry through Wednesday and beyond for the Northeast, Midwest, Plains and to a lesser degree the upper West, storage use appeared to be offsetting demand for new production to a large degree.

Cash price movement was mixed for the second day in a row Thursday, but this time traders tended to favor the upside more. What may be the last hurrah of the 2005-06 winter appeared to have settled in for an extended stay in northern market areas, while much of the West will remain stormy and cold through at least the weekend.

Price movement was mixed Wednesday, but there were a lot more downs than ups as an early-week surge of colder temperatures appeared ready to acknowledge that the official start of spring is just around the corner (next week, actually). Declines not only outnumbered the gains, but also were substantially larger in many cases.