Sometimes, a little dose of reality can spoil everybody’s fun.

Some parts of the country actually experienced summer weather that felt like summer this week, especially in the southern states, and the extra demand resulted in a tepid, sub-expectation injection this week. In fact, the working gas in storage actually LOST ground to both last year’s figures and the five-year average, something that hasn’t happened in quite a while.

So the ground was set for another burst of irrational exuberance on NYMEX. Then the government went and spoiled everything.

They released job figures for June.

It’s clear that the mood in the country is shifting from outright pessimism to a fragile, impatient optimism, so figures showing that unemployment is still increasing…albeit at a slower rate than before…put a major damper on everything, including NYMEX natural gas. A short end-of-month rise has been gradually losing steam heading into the long weekend ahead.

What’s less clear…and of particular interest to us here at Cost Containment Intl….is whether we have finally hit the long-anticipated support to NYMEX natural gas prices. Despite (or perhaps because of) all the different factors in play, and a fair amount of weekly bouncing, the overall price curve since April is flat. Predictions of sub-$3.00 prices have not happened, and every uptick and decline has proved to be temporary. It’s a bit on the bumpy side, but it’s starting to feel like level ground.

Of course, we haven’t yet seen a week where all the forces line up together and push in the same direction, or a market reaction to such a clear signal. With reality, as with the current NYMEX, even the level path has its ups and downs.