Daily Market Commentary October 18, 2001

PRICES ADVANCE ON LOCAL BUYING . . .

 Natural gas futures advanced in active trading Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Much of the initial advance resulted from concerted buying by local and short term traders, but trade and commercial as well as fund and managed account buying surfaced later in the day. Short term
traders are expecting higher prices tomorrow. . .

 At the end of the day the November contract rose $.068 to $2.486 and the December gained $.097 to $2.800 . . .

 "There was good buying late in the session from SCS (Commodities), but most of today's upmove was from local and short term trader buying," said a New
York floor trader. . .

 "Enron was also buying later in the day. It was something of a reversal, for
the trade and commercial accounts bought in front of the local traders." . .

 "It's starting to look that the trade and commercial buyers are favoring the
upside, but it's a difficult call. Local and short term traders took long positions home with them today," he noted. . .

 "They are looking for the trade and commercial buying to continue tomorrow."



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