The natural gas market continued its downward trend and the August contract settled at $3.459/mmBtu.  The August contract expired 6.7% below the July contract settlement and 17% below this year’s peak settlement of $4.152/mmBtu.  After a somewhat bullish storage report last week, the market failed to rally and when the Monday morning weather forecasts showed cooler temperatures across much of the United States, the August contract proceeded to decline 9.6 cents.   The winter strip is currently trading below $3.75/mmBtu and the CY2014 strip continues to average below $4/mmBtu.