Spiraled

As yet another storm in what is shaping up to be one of thesnowiest winters on record pummeled New England Friday, natural gasfutures spiraled higher only to reverse lower at mid-day as tradersstared ahead at bearish intermediate-term temperature and storageoutlooks. The May contract tumbled lower under the considerableselling pressure to close at $5.025, leaving the prompt month witha 24.9-cent loss to conclude the week. Considering the size of theprice move, volume was relatively weak as less than 60,000contracts changed hands.

In a continuation of the selling that began around noonWednesday, natural gas futures spiraled lower yesterday as pricesbroke beneath several key technical levels. For the May contract,that meant a sizeable loss on its first day in the limelight as thenewly crowned prompt month sunk 17.9 cents to close at $5.274.Equally impressive was the pull back seen in the out-months, whichconspired to send the summer strip down 17.8 cents to $5.355.

Adding to gains achieved in Tuesday night’s Access tradingsession, natural gas futures spiraled higher Wednesday as tradersprobed into uncharted price territory in reaction to anotherbullish storage report. Fueled by that buying pressure, theDecember contract finished 24.9 cents higher at $6.265, almost$2.00 above lows notched two weeks ago.

Propelled by a tropical depression swirling in the Bay ofCampeche and concerns of yet another bullish storage report,natural gas futures spiraled higher yesterday as traders coveredshort positions. That buying interest pushed the September contractto $2.805 — the highest mark for a spot month contract sinceDecember of 1997 — before settling at $2.792 for the session.

The June Nymex contract spiraled 8.0 cents lower to $2.130 onWednesday, thanks to what an analyst said was traders unloadinglong positions ahead of the latest AGA storage report. That report,which came in at 78 Bcf, was slightly above the expected range of50-75 Bcf, and nearly double the 46 Bcf report from last year.

UtiliCorp United and Andersen Consulting are engaged in a legalbattle over fees for work Andersen did for UtiliCorp that theclient says spiraled to more than twice the amount agreed upon.Most recently, UtiliCorp filed a $10 million suit in a Missouricourt charging Andersen with negligence and failure to live up toterms of a 1996 contract for administrative software and systems.The suit is a response to a complaint filed in March by Andersenseeking payment of fees UtiliCorp had withheld.