Probed

Adding to the week’s trend of back-and-forth trading — a product of a directionless market — October natural gas futures probed lower values on Friday and closed at $3.881, down 13.8 cents from Thursday’s finish and 14.3 cents below the previous week’s close.

Even with July crude futures continuing to explode higher, June natural gas futures values probed the downside in morning trade before limping higher to close at $3.970 Wednesday, up 5.6 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

With weather forecasts into March beginning to show some signs of thaw, March natural gas futures on expiration Wednesday probed lower for a majority of the session. The contract reached a low of $8.880 before going off of the board at $8.930, down 27.6 cents from Tuesday’s finish. The April contract, which will now take over as front-month contract, finished Wednesday at $9.060, down 19.2 cents.

With Hurricane Emily’s path looking less threatening to a majority of Gulf of Mexico production, August natural gas futures on Monday probed the downside, trading as low as $7.560 before settling at $7.652, down 19.7 cents from Friday.

Once again hitching their wagon to crude oil futures, April natural gas futures on Wednesday probed lower, reaching a session low of $7.09 before settling at $7.138, down 11 cents on the day. While the decline was significant, it failed to test $7.05, which is considered to be the lower boundary of the market’s current trading range.

Punctuating Monday’s 32.6-cent price slide, natural gas futures probed lower Tuesday, as traders initiated the session by demoting the market to its second straight gap-lower open. Prices shuffled lower throughout the morning, augmented by a boost of selling pressure, as the December contract broke beneath the $2.835 low from Oct. 24. However support held and the prompt month retraced a portion of those losses in the afternoon to close with a 4.2-cent loss at $2.88.

In a somewhat stunning show of bullishness, natural gas futuresprobed higher yesterday as funds and locals followed the lead ofcommercial buying throughout the last hour of trading. On its firstday in the limelight, the new prompt month, October, received thelargest boost of any contract at Nymex, leaping 15.8 cents higherto close at $4.801. In doing so, it set a new all-time high dailysettlement for a prompt contract.

Taking a cue from Wednesday’s Access trading session, thefutures market probed lower yesterday as weak longs and speculatorstook profits away from the price rally earlier this week. TheNovember contract was dealt the largest blow, slipping 13.6 centsto finish at $2.834. December closely followed by tumbling 10.8cents to $3.051.

For the second day in a row the futures market probed to eitherside of unchanged yesterday as local traders attempted to influencethe market-first higher, then lower-in choppy, range-bound trading.But for the second day in a row they received little or no helpfrom other market participants, and thus were forced to cover intheir positions before the close. That enabled the October contractto drift quietly lower Monday, closing down 2 cents to $2.781.Estimated volume of 74,785 was well below Friday’s impressive114,000 figure.