Plod

Natural gas futures values continued to plod lower on Tuesday as much of the country has begun to see the first signs of spring. The April contract reached yet another new low for the down move before closing the regular session at $4.347, down 4.4 cents from Monday’s finish.

Southern Co., which had the foresight to spin off its marketing operations over a year ago and plod along as an unglamorous utility, was the one sporting the positive results Wednesday, reporting third quarter earnings up 5% this year over last at $595 million, or 84 cents per share. At the same time TXU Corp., which expanded marketing operations to the Continent, has lost its sparkle, settling for 73 cents/share earnings in the quarter or $206 million, off 38% from 3Q 2001.

Natural gas prices continued to defy gravity Tuesday, as traders added to their long positions in the hope that cold weather outlooks will be validated next week by plummeting mercury readings. The bulls did not have it easy, however, as they were forced to battle back from an early foray into negative territory on the day. Buy stops helped their cause, as prices began to rebound and by noon EST, bulls had notched a fresh one-week high at $2.87. The December contract closed just off that level at $2.852, up 6.1 cents for the session.

Natural gas futures, which have been caught in a downtrend sincelast summer, ticked quietly lower yesterday in a dull tradingsession. No fresh news was seen to lift the market higher and as aresult, the March contract was free to follow the overall trend byslipping 1.9 cents to $1.776 at the close. And although the Marchcontract has only slipped 5 cents lower since becoming the promptmonth on Jan. 27, it has dropped a whopping 82.4 cents, or morethan 30% from its $2.60 high set on April 8.

Expiration day at Nymex has been a bull-trader’s worst nightmarerecently because the last several contracts have been ushered offthe board amid a tempest of late selling activity. Septemberslipped 9 cents on its last trading day to cap off a 27.5 centprice decline for the week. Likewise, October and Novemberplummeted 15 cents and 13.6 cents to settle to either side of $2.00at final settlement. And although December’s fate is far fromsealed, Monday’s 6.6-cent losses and $2.097 penultimate settlementprompted traders to wonder if the market might be in for anotherround of expiration-day losses today.