Natural gas futures completed a topsy-turvy trading week on a down note Friday, pressured lower by light pre-holiday profit-taking. The January contract dropped 14 cents to close at $6.982.

February, meanwhile, managed to hold onto its “$7” handle, shedding 15.9 cents to finish at $7.023. The last month of the winter strip — March — was the biggest loser, free-falling 20.9 cents to close at $6.523. At 52,412, estimated volume in the pit was again light, evidence that many traders have elected to observe this hyper-volatile market from the sidelines.

Traders polled by NGI Friday agreed that last week’s choppy trading action was representative of the lack of consensus on the market’s next price leg. While bulls are betting on an arctic cold front and bears are pointing to copious levels of gas in storage, neither group is in the driver’s seat.

And though longer-term private weather forecasts are suggesting the first week of the new year will be frigid, those predictions have yet to trickle down into the six- to 10-day and eight- to 14-day predictions by the National Weather Service. Traders agreed that the selling exhibited Friday would have been stronger if it weren’t for traders’ fear that they could come into work Monday to find NWS forecasts in bullish agreement with the private outlooks circulating the market last week.

It will be no rest for the weary this week. After first digesting the latest weather outlooks, traders will turn their sights to the weekly storage report set to be announced at noon EST Wednesday. “Our early guess is that we may see [another] 130-140 Bcf withdrawal,” said Tim Evans of IFR Pegasus in New York. Based on forecasts last week suggesting degree days were 10% above the comparable week last year, Southwest Securities calls for a 120 Bcf withdrawal to be announced this week.

A number in that range would be bullish, as it would exceed the year-ago and five-year average draws of 95 Bcf and 110 Bcf respectively. And while the market will undoubtedly respond to the news, it will have to do so quickly. Gas trading at Nymex will stop at 1 p.m. EST the next two Wednesdays ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. “We think the storage data may continue to offer some fundamental support for prices, but the Wednesday afternoon release schedule for the data for the next two weeks will limit the price reaction,” Evans continued.

Also open to interpretation is the latest report from the Commitments of Traders Report released Friday. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, non-commercial traders slowed their short-covering appreciably during the week ending Dec. 16. Specifically, the report revealed that these fund traders held a net short holding of 14,662 positions as of last Tuesday, down only slightly from the 16,721 positions of the week before. While the idea that the funds all but froze their short-covering activity for an entire week is surprising, it is not unbelievable considering prices during that period were basically flat. On Tuesday, Dec 16, the January contract settled at $6.747, up just 2.5 cents from the $6.722 close from Dec. 9.

In daily technicals, Tom Saal of Miami-based Commercial Brokerage Corp. sees overhead resistance at $7.25. A break of that level would prod him back to the bull side of the market. On the downside, support exists at recent lows of $6.55, traders agree.

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