Natural Gas Hits 6-Month Low

January 18, 2006
Ashton Dorkins

TradingMarkets

Futures Pivots are now much easier to use and available for free. To use
them as part of your daily research, simply select the contract you are trading
and tomorrow’s support and resistance levels are displayed.

The economic calendar was action packed today, starting with the
Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly report — which showed a drop in loan
application volume

(report).
The December Consumer Price Index dropped unexpectedly

(report),
mainly due to a large drop in energy prices. However, Core CPI rose 0.2%. For
the year, the CPI rose 3.4% and Core CPI was up 2.2%. The Fed released the Beige
Book at 2:00 PM EST, which showed the economy continues to expand (report).
All these reports and analysis, plus highlights from the Beige Book and comments
by the Fed’s Lacker can be found in our
Economic
News section.

Treasuries initially rose after the CPI report
before selling off for most of the afternoon session. The Fed’s Beige Book and
comments by Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker also weighed on treasuries
which closed lower for the first time in 4-days.

The Yen rallied versus the US Dollar and Euro after
comments after the BoJ Governor assured investors the Japanese economy is firm
after the NIKKEI fell 3% and trading was suspended due to heavy volume.

Gold
(Futures Pivots)
suffered its biggest decline in a month with traders
citing “tame” inflation data as the cause. The drop was not surprising following
yesterday’s bearish technical condition.

Chart created with FutureSource Xtra

Despite colder weather across the Northeast US
today the energies were weak, the forecast is still for above averages
temperatures over the next week. Natural Gas erased yesterday’s gains to close
at the lowest level since July.