Wild

It was a wild ride Wednesday in swing trading for the last day of September. All points spiked by amounts ranging from about 30 cents to nearly a dollar, with a heavy majority up 60 cents or more, in a market driven largely by a screen that soared nearly half a dollar Tuesday and was up by almost 90 cents at one point Wednesday morning before retreating in sympathy with falling oil futures.

Capping off a wild week that started Monday with a 28.4-cent futures drop to sub-$6 levels, August natural gas futures decided to take somewhat of a breather Friday, closing up 4.1 cents at $5.887. On Thursday, the prompt month reached its low for the week by trading off to $5.805.

Capping off a wild week of trading that saw wide swings, the June natural gas futures contract finished the week at $6.353, down 4.8 cents from last Friday’s $6.401 close. The big news on Friday was the strength of natural gas, despite a crude futures sell-off.

After taking a wild ride in morning trading to a $6.48 high, the June natural gas futures contract settled down a bit Wednesday afternoon to close at $6.405, up 1.9 cents on the day. With a lackluster natural gas storage report expected Thursday morning, traders said the futures market could move in either direction given the recent gains.

Cash prices galloped 35-40 cents higher across the country on Tuesday in response to Monday’s wild 37-cent jump in June gas futures and the continued strength in the gas and oil futures markets on Tuesday.

Explaining its wild swing from a $108 million ($0.37/share) gain in continuing operations during the third quarter 2002 to a $791 million ($2.69/share) loss during the third quarter of 2003, Reliant Resources Inc. blamed the difference on its previously announced goodwill impairment and settlement with FERC.

Cooler temperatures, continuing wide basis spreads and an early jump in near-month futures led many gas cash market observers to expect early Tuesday that it would be another day of daily spot increases, but averages actually ended the day down a few cents in most cases and the tide appeared to be turning on Nymex by the afternoon.

In another session marked by choppy trading activity, natural gas futures shuffled sideways Friday as bullish technicians and bearish analysts clashed in the court of industry opinion. And while each trading faction had its moments, little was resolved by Friday’s $6.51 close, which was down just 1.1 cents for the session and near the middle of the market’s wide $6.350-625 daily trading range.

Despite the arrival of some of the coldest air in several years across much of the eastern half of the country, natural gas futures prices fell Tuesday as traders learned that moderating temperatures are forecast in some medium-range weather outlooks.