Unlike the recent past when penetration of the $6 level has been short-lived, March natural gas futures on Friday instead appeared to be fairly comfortable trading in the high $5.90s. Whether the prompt month can stay below $6 following the long holiday weekend is another question entirely.

Trading in a shortened session due to the President’s Day holiday on Monday, March natural gas kept a tight 6.5-cent trading range on Friday, reaching a high of $5.965. Trading on the day marked the first time a prompt month has remained under $6 for the entire session since Jan. 5. March settled at $5.908, down 1.5 cents from Thursday and 18.5 cents lower than the previous Friday’s $6.093 close.

In addition to settling lower for its third consecutive session, March natural gas also went against the petroleum futures complex on Friday. March crude closed up 81 cents at $48.35/bbl, while March heating oil settled up 3.65 cents at $1.3493/gallon.

Some market watchers remained surprised that natural gas did not crash lower based on Thursday’s bearish storage report. The Energy Information Administration reported that 98 Bcf was removed from storage for the week ended Feb. 11, which came in below industry estimates and well below the 149 Bcf five-year average.

“I watched this market when the bearish storage number came out Thursday. You would have thought that with the small number and the fact that stocks are sitting considerably higher than last year that the futures market would have gotten the heck beat out of it Thursday. That really didn’t happen,” a Washington, DC-based broker said.

“While the market did move down, it didn’t really collapse at all. This was not a wild rush to the doors by the longs. In fact, we found a lot of buying coming in from our customers as soon as a five appeared in front of the price,” he noted. “We also did a fair amount of business Friday for the same reason — all on the long side, nothing on the short side.”

As for whether this jailbreak below $6 will be able to remain, the broker said that not only would he not bet on it, but he also questions its significance. “I am not at all sure that this break below $6 is anything more than a break below $6,” he said. “I don’t see it as miraculous by any means.”

While futures have sold off on two of the last three storage reports, the broker said he still believes that the market is range-bound for now. “We had a big sell-off on Thursday, Feb. 3 and then again on this past Thursday, but neither of them really broke down under what one might call critical support,” he pointed out. “I am not ready to say that we are doing that until we get under the low from Jan. 3 of $5.77. Until that, I see us as still trading within a range — and we are doing this on very high volume. I am not a bear until it breaks $5.77 and — with liquids heading the other way — I have my doubts that it will get there.”

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