Word: marketeers
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That's no reason to party. Here's why: unlike the global crude-oil market, the market for natural gas is incredibly localized. The U.S. produces nearly 90% of what it consumes, and the rest is imported from Canada or from overseas - the latter amounting to only about 2.5% of U.S. consumption. Thus, a glut of domestic gas doesn't really affect imports...
...stored just anywhere we want; we also cannot transport it very easily. Gas is typically stored in underground reservoirs. The pressure of the gas and the type of reservoir can make injection and extraction cycles difficult and lengthy processes. Until traders see extra storage realized, the natural gas market will be priced in steep contango, meaning prices of natural gas for future delivery will hang far above the current price. The low prices now represent the abundance of unusable and potentially unstorable gas, a situation that will not last. (Read "Can Steven Chu Win the Fight Over Global Warming...
Just as in the case of crude oil, supply and demand do not paint the full picture. As of Aug. 24, the U.S. Natural Gas Fund, an exchange-traded fund listed as UNG on the NYSE, held about 10% of the contracts in the October 2009 futures market traded on NYMEX. Combine that position with its over-the-counter swap holdings, and UNG held the equivalent of more than 50% of the October contract's open interest. In following its plan to buy and hold natural gas, UNG keeps rolling its position into the next futures month. In other words...
...great pricing inefficiency arises because this natural gas speculator is following a predefined plan - and the plan is publicly known. Plus, it's a foolish one. A fund that invests in long-term natural gas prices is taking needless risk in placing significant money in the short-term futures market...
...Over the past few days, though, everything has come undone again. GM's management, which now includes U.S. government appointees after Washington's massive bailout of the Detroit firm, is split. Some on the board want GM to sell its European operations and focus on the U.S. market. And GM cannot use money from U.S. taxpayers to restructure Opel. (See pictures of General Motors factory-scapes...