Swing

The swing market obviously had more resilience than some traders had expected because Tuesday’s prices ranged from up as much as about 15 cents to down more than a dime, defying predictions on Monday of overall softening.

Much like last month’s swing market ended on Oct. 28, triple-digit price losses were the order of the day at all points Friday. Moderating weekend weather trends in the South, Midwest, Northeast and parts of the West, along with the previous day’s plunges in energy futures and the bearish psychology of record storage inventories, were chiefly responsible for the tremendous softening.

Much like last month’s swing market ended on Oct. 28, triple-digit price losses were the order of the day at all points Friday. Moderating weekend weather trends in the South, Midwest, Northeast and parts of the West, along with the previous day’s plunges in energy futures and the bearish psychology of record storage inventories, were chiefly responsible for the tremendous softening.

The cash market showed little apparent rhyme or reason Tuesday as September swing trading opened with a hodgepodge of mixed price movement that nevertheless favored the upside in a majority of cases. Prices may have found more weather-related load than expected, and the screen’s gain of nearly a nickel Monday may have played a part.

Continuing the trend this season of mimicking the crude oil futures market, the June natural gas futures contract followed its liquid big brother lower on Monday, closing down 11 cents at $6.184. The drop was in contrast to the start of last week, when June natural gas futures enjoyed a 36.9-cent breakout gain.

Moderate softening continued in the swing market Thursday for the most part, but points here and there were flat or eked out tiny gains. Except for some lingering chill in the Upper Plains, Rockies and Western Canada, temperatures were converging toward pleasant levels appropriate for mid-spring in nearly all other regions (cooler in the Southwest and warmer in the Northeast). However, a cold front was due to move into the Midwest by the weekend.

The swing market achieved a fairly substantial recovery Monday from weekend softness. Advances ranged from about a nickel at a couple of South Texas points to more than 30 cents in the Southwest basins. Most were in double digits between a dime and a quarter.

Except for losses getting a little larger and extending to as much as 20 cents or so, Monday’s swing market was almost a carbon copy of that on Friday — mostly moderate declines with a smidgen of firmness at a few points.

The first of the big three majors, third-ranked ConocoPhillips, swung to a profit in the fourth quarter after a year-ago loss, unhindered by the special charges from its mega merger in 2002. Meanwhile, Kerr McGee Corp. and Amerada Hess Corp. also reversed their losses from a year ago on higher commodity prices.