Bounce

October natural gas futures plumbed new depths in the $2.40s in early Friday trade before taking a significant bounce during the day’s regular session to close at $2.728, up 22 cents from Thursday’s regular session close but 30.5 cents lower than the previous week’s finish.

Futures Wednesday continued to bounce off the walls of the trading range that has been in place for the last two weeks, and traders said that it would take an unexpected weather event or unusual storage figure to get the futures moving one way or the other. November futures fell 6.7 cents to $6.777 after trading as high as $6.970 in electronic trading and December fell 11.1 cents to $6.977. December crude oil tumbled $5.43 to $66.75.

Attempting to capture Tuesday’s downward momentum, natural gas futures traders on Wednesday pushed the June contract to a low of $10.665 before an afternoon bounce finished the regular session at virtually unchanged from Tuesday’s close. The prompt-month contract closed at $10.843, up one-tenth of a penny from the previous day.

Analysts, many stunned by the news of Anadarko’s double play, saw the bounce in the energy markets from the news, but they also saw some negatives. In any case, energy analyst John Gerdes sees it as an expensive play. “The global takeaway here, with the 40% premium to the prices is that Anadarko is betting on $8 long-term gas prices. Otherwise, it’s absolutely the wrong mindset.”

Trading within a 20-cent range on the day, June natural gas futures on Friday seemed content to bounce between $5.880 and $6.080 before closing below $6.000 for the second consecutive session at $5.962, down 3.5 cents on the day and 31.8 cents lower than the previous week’s close.

Rebounding from Monday’s 24.3-cent decline, April natural gas futures on Tuesday climbed as high as $6.750 before settling at $6.678, up 13.1 cents for the day. Despite the bounce, market experts said the level of bearish fundamentals in the market right now would make any sort of significant rally difficult.

After plummeting to trade at $5.32 just prior to noon (EDT), September natural gas futures failed to find any traction and failed to bounce off the floor for the remainder of the trading session. The prompt month reached a low of $5.305 in afternoon trading before settling at $5.31, down 24.2 cents from Friday’s close.

After finding some support at $5.96 in morning trading, the July natural gas futures contract worked itself back up to close at $6.082, down 3.3 cents on the day. Despite recording its sixth consecutive down day, the prompt month’s rebound off of the sub-$6 mark gave bears reason to pause, as bulls look to Thursday for confirmation of the support. Volume was heavy Wednesday with 106,852 contracts changing hands.

After tumbling $3.42 from their $8.50 high on Feb. 28 with only one up-day, April futures finally found a bottom at $5.08 and bounced higher. The contract appeared to be headed for another large drop on Friday morning, opening the day with a sharp move to the downside. But at about 10:40 a.m. buying suddenly kicked in on oversold conditions and by the end of the day, April was up 6.9 cents at $5.430, not far from its daily high of $5.480.