Natural Gas Tumbles As Crude Oil Slides; Hurricane Bertha Spurs Less Worry; Corn, Copper Fall
NEW YORK -- Natural-gas futures made their biggest single-day drop since March 17 as crude oil slid from record highs and the first named hurricane of 2008 season tracked away from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.</br></br>Natural gas for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled floor trade down 60 cents, or 4.4%, at $12.977 per million British thermal units after hitting a low of $12.874 per million BTUs in combined electronic and floor trade.</br></br>"A lot of this is a sympathetic overflow from the oil complex," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of trading-advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates.</br></br>Crude oil settled down $3.92, or 2.7%, at $141.37 a barrel, amid strength in the dollar and a possible easing in tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Oil's fall also coincided with a drop in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 100 points at the 2:30 p.m. EDT close of the Nymex pit session.</br></br>Oil and natural-gas traders took long positions last week ahead of the July 4th holiday weekend, expecting prices to continue their climb, said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York. That sparked a selloff Monday, as the notion of downside risk re-emerged in the market, he added.