Session

After posting losses in the Tuesday evening Access session, theJuly Nymex contract gapped lower on the open yesterday, thencontinued to falter closing at $2.106, down a nickel. The contractwas held within a tight 4 cent range between $2.095-135 whichalmost identically mirrored Henry Hub cash prices on the day.Estimated volume was 41,493

The June Nymex futures contract kicked up 2.0 cents to $2.169 onWednesday, amid a relatively light trading session and an extremelylimited three-cent trading range. Estimated volume came in at amere 43,390 contracts. “Trading was extremely orderly today,” abroker reported. “There was no real panic. Most of the volume wasEFPs and spreads today, with very little outright trading.” Hethinks part of the reason why speculative activity was limited isthat a satellite which transmits Nymex data to several vendors wasapparently down yesterday, and that prevented traders from gettingnecessary real-time price information.

The May Nymex contract nudged 2.1 cents lower to $2.535 Mondayamid a session marked by a relatively light total estimated volumefigure of just over 30,000 contracts. “Many traders are waiting fordirection from the cash market, and since that hardly moved today,it makes sense futures hardly budged either,” an analyst told GPI.

The March Nymex contract turned in another heavily tradedsession on Tuesday, but once again, volatility was virtuallynon-existent. Although the spot month managed a 3.7 cent gain to$2.216, the contract was held to a relatively tight 5.5 centtrading band. Not even the expiration of options yesterday couldpersuade traders to push March out of its recent rigid tradinglimits.

The March Nymex contract inched 3.2 cents higher to $2.270 onThursday, amid a session sources agreed was once again dominated bytechnicals. “This looks like a very strong trading range, sotoday’s result was to be expected,” a trader said. “March drifted afew cents toward the bottom of its range on Wednesday, so it makessense the contract would move higher today. Because the tradingrange is so tight right now, that is limiting how much March can goup,” he said.