Quietest

Following the quietest session in recent memory Friday, natural gas futures sprung back to life Monday as traders liquidated prompt-month holdings in an expiration-session free-for-all. There was little in the way of fresh news Monday, but it turns out that the old news was bearish enough to propel the market lower. The May contract was hardest hit by the selling, tumbling 25 cents in the last 30 minutes of trading to carve out a new three-week low of $5.00. The settlement price, which on expiration day is calculated by averaging all prompt month trades during the last 30 minutes of the session, was $5.123, down 35.4 cents for the day and more than 70 cents off its highs of just a week ago.

In what has to have been the quietest session in recent memoryand one of the top five during the last year, natural gas futuresshuffled sideways Friday amid a dearth of fresh fundamental newsand technical developments. In its penultimate trading session, theMarch contract closed at $5.131, down 1.1 cents for the day, 43.7cents lower for the week, and a cool $1.00 below where it was whenit began its tenure as prompt contract back on Jan. 29.

Completing its quietest last-three-day settlement period inrecent history, natural gas futures moved higher early yesterdayonly to drift lower throughout the afternoon as traders lightenedtheir long exposures. The expiring May contract finished 2.1 centslower at $3.089, but for many the real story was the rest of thesummer strip which slipped an average of 2.9 cents. Estimatedvolume was light for an expiration day with only 90,843 contractschanging hands.

Following one of the quietest trading sessions in recent memoryThursday, the futures market snapped back to life Friday as tradersetched out a wide, 20-cent range in bumpy, pre-weekend dealings.After trading as low as $2.55 and as high as $2.76 the Novembercontract finished the week strongly, gaining 5 cents to $2.692.Estimated volume of 79,860 confirmed the heavy activity.

In what a few sources described as some of the quietest tradingthey had seen in quite a while, cash quotes fell anywhere from 2cents to a dime or so at Eastern points Monday. In contrast,numbers were generally flat to slightly higher for the Rockies,Southwest basins, California and intra-Alberta.