Bolstered by relatively strong cooling demand overall, natural gas futures shrugged off bearish trends in the weather outlook over the weekend to probe slightly higher in early trading Monday. The August Nymex contract was up 1.3 cents to $3.687/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The natural gas futures market faced mixed signals as of early Monday, analysts at EBW Analytics Group said in a note to clients. They noted a loss of cooling degree days (CDD) over the weekend in the 15-day forecast.

“By Wednesday, however, total CDD nationally are expected to increase more than 10% from this past weekend and generally remain elevated for 10 to 14 days,” the EBW analysts said. “In this context, the direction in which futures move is likely to be heavily affected by the strength of the...