Adding to double-digit gains achieved Wednesday, the futuresmarket plodded higher Thursday when short-covering activity boostedprices in light, pre-holiday trading. The move left February with atwo-day gain of 16.4 cents, a feat January could not muster duringits entire reign as prompt month.
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Sumas Quotes Exceed $3; Otherwise Price Rally Halted
Sumas had the distinction Tuesday of being the first point tosurpass $3 pricing in the current winter heating season, althoughPG&E citygates had gotten as high as $2.92 in the second weekof November (see Daily GPI, Nov. 11). In super-volatile quotes thatranged from the $2.20 area to as high as $3.40 (one source said heheard a $3.50 deal got done), Sumas soared far above an overallmarket that had turned stagnant since Monday’s strong rebound.
Price Rally Resembles Smaller Version of Last Week’s
The cash market started out this week looking remarkably similarto the way it did last week, but on a reduced scale. Because pricesweren’t digging out from nearly as deep a weekend hole as the oneof Dec. 5-7, Monday’s increases weren’t quite as spectacular asthose from the previous week but were still significantnonetheless.
Futures Plunge Despite Cash Rally
Bearish fundamental factors once again took over at the New YorkMercantile Exchange Tuesday, sending the natural gas futures marketspiraling lower and nearly erasing gains registered over the priorthree trading sessions. Even cash prices, which continued to spikedramatically higher yesterday, did not influence the futuresmarket. After January opened below key support, the market neverlooked back as prices fell 18.8 cents to $1.913 at the closeTuesday. And just like that, the futures-cash basis has shrunk froma whopping 97 cents to a tight 14 cents over the past two days.
Bull Rally Corralled by Weather, Storage
The futures market was poised to trade higher yesterday onmomentum gained from a string of advances dating back to lastThursday, but revised forecasts calling for seasonable temperaturesand a lack of technical direction took the wind out of bull-tradersails, allowing the market to slip lower. For the second day in arow, changes were more pronounced in the December contract than theprompt month. November slid 2.2 cents lower to settle at $2.18, butDecember lost 2.8 cents to $2.455.
AGA ‘Surprise’ Lifts Market in Evening Trading
Fueled by Tuesday afternoon advances, the November contractraced out to a strong start on Wednesday. But the rally becameshort-lived when it met with a wall of selling in the mid-teens,leaving the market to finish lower at the closing bell. TheNovember contract settled at $2.041, a 4.3 cent decline for theday.
Technical Rally Gets Boost from Storage
Expectations often differ from what actually comes to fruitionin the volatile arena of natural gas futures, and yesterday thatpoint was driven home when a bullish combination of slow-to-resumesupply outages met with a smaller-than-expected storage refill.Traders chased the market higher most of the day, and advances inthe evening computer trading Access session nearly matched theregular pit-trading gains. The November contract received thelargest boost, rocketing 16.8 cents to post a final trade of $2.515last night after briefly settling at $2.433 earlier in the day.
Energy Stocks Rise on Market’s High Tide
Energy stocks gave credence to the adage that a high tide raisesall boats as they followed Wednesday’s market rally, generallyrising one to two points. While energy shareholders are surelyenvious of the leap made by the market stars’ – technology stocks -the share price boost was welcome good news in a marketplaceplagued by depressed commodity prices.
Futures Tacks on Gains Ahead of Weekend
The futures market continued its rally on Friday, fed on asteady diet of short-covering and local buying ahead of the holidayweekend. Early gains posted by the October contract led to a quickspike to the $1.86 level before light position squaring trimmedadvances before the closing bell. That left the prompt contract upa respectable 7.1 cents to settle at $1.783. October was not alone,November and December each more than matched October’s gains,increasing 7.6 cents and 7.3 cents, respectively.
New Softness Erodes Expectations of Price Rally
The cash market lost some ground Tuesday, again defying sources’pre-holiday expectations of a rebound from last Thursday’s pricerout. Except for PG&E citygates and intra-Alberta-each upalmost a nickel into the high $2.20s and low C$2.00srespectively-and small gains at a couple of other scattered points,quotes registered as flat to down 5-7 cents.