Pressured by a triumvirate of bearish factors — weather,technicals and cash prices — natural gas futures plodded lower inan abbreviated, pre-holiday session Friday as weak longs continuedto shed their positions. However, instead of liquidating theirlongs entirely, traders elected to roll their prompt holdings intoout months. At the closing bell, the February contract was 23.6cents lower at $8.472 while the summer strip (Apr.-Oct.) was 6.7cents higher on the day at $6.085.

For Nymex local technician Ira Hochman, it was the market’sinability to break above a moving average value off the Februarychart at $8.85 that sent the market into a tailspin Friday morning.

However, market watchers were impressed by the market’s abilityto remain above the $8.14 low notched on Jan. 3. Although Februarysagged 78.9 cents last week, some might say that because it did notfall below the low from the previous week, the market was”consolidating” between the $9.925 high from Dec. 29 and theaforementioned $8.14 low. Notably absent from traders’ vocabularyduring the fourth quarter’s precipitous price rise, “consolidation”is a term that describes a market that is stuck within previoushighs and lows while traders wait for a fundamental reason topropel prices one way or the other.

Accordingly, many traders are anxious to see what fresh weatherforecasts hold this week. Although experimental in nature, theeight- to 14-day forecast released each day by the National WeatherService is gaining favor with traders trying to gain insight pastthe more popular six- to 10-day outlook. On Friday, that eight- to14-day forecast was solidly in bears’ favor as it called forcontinued above-normal temperatures from the Northeast clear acrossthe Great Lakes region and Upper Midwest to include much of theNorthern Plains.

In addition to the bearish weather forecasts, the futures marketalso came under selling pressure in response to the weather outsidetraders’ windows on Friday. For the second day in a row,temperatures warmed well above freezing across the entire EastCoast Megatropolis and physical prices reacted accordingly. Infact, Northeast prices were the hardest hit, suffering declinesthat approached a half-dollar.

Looking ahead, traders will get an extra day of rest Monday asNymex observes Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. Trading will resumeat 7 p.m. (ET) Monday evening in Access trading.

Support for February exists at the $8.14 low. Resistance on theother hand, lies at the top of the chart gap created by lastThursday’s lower open at $9.01.

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