Why am I not surprised that we'd get smoked only 1 day after you and Ken came
down? As an FYI, we saw huge fund liquidation today prompted by a poorly
traded technical market--however it appears we have now achieved the downside
targets the funds, etc. watch. We also heard a rumor (started on the NYMEX
floor) that the EIA changed their storage stats by 250 Bcf--showing a higher
inventory. In fact, the only thing we could find was an obscure update that
showed a
change of 25 Bcf only.
When I asked all of the desk heads about their views of the market, the feel
is still bullish. We did see a couple of fertilizer plants stop buying gas
(one actually sold). Our traders don't see the tide turning yet with this
info, however.
Crude was extremely strong, the weather is hot, and some storage operators
were also withdrawing. (you know--mortgage the future sort of trading).
Needless to say I'll not be knocking on the VAR door today. Welcome to
hurricane season 2000.

On another note, we traded our first weekday only term gas in Texas this
week, and we anticipate 5x16 gas markets(to serve the texas generators to
start) trading by month end.

We'll get 'em....