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Flying in the face of fundamental and technical indicators, November natural gas futures ventured higher Tuesday to close at $7.123, up 31.7 cents on the day. December futures, which will soon take over the front month title, climbed 25 cents to settle at $8.315.

After roller-coastering within a 13-cent range for a majority of Monday’s regular session, October natural gas futures decided that the higher end was more to its liking, settling up 14.1 cents on the day at $5.249.

Capping off a wild week that started Monday with a 28.4-cent futures drop to sub-$6 levels, August natural gas futures decided to take somewhat of a breather Friday, closing up 4.1 cents at $5.887. On Thursday, the prompt month reached its low for the week by trading off to $5.805.

Unable to follow up on their whopping 27.6-cent rally on Tuesday, August natural gas futures spent Wednesday shaving off some of the gain ahead of Thursday morning’s natural gas storage report for the week ended July 2. The prompt month traded as low as $6.335 before settling at $6.37, down 5.4 cents on the day.

Shrugging off gains achieved in the nearby crude oil pit, the natural gas futures market set new lows for the week Friday as traders liquidated positions in concert with some negative technical factors and ahead of mild weather expected this week. At $6.442, the newly-anointed prompt month July was down 13.1 cents for the session, but still up 3.3 cents for the week.

Following the EIA’s slightly bearish storage report of a 76 Bcf build for the week ended May 7, the June natural gas futures contract plummeted 14.5 cents from the pre-storage release level of $6.47 to trade at $6.325 as of 11:10 a.m., leaving many market observers wondering how much further futures would fall.

Cash prices galloped 35-40 cents higher across the country on Tuesday in response to Monday’s wild 37-cent jump in June gas futures and the continued strength in the gas and oil futures markets on Tuesday.

Not ready to back of off its 36.9 cent jump Monday, the June natural gas futures contract instead continued on its upward path, recording a modest gain Tuesday of 3.8 cents to close at $6.269, while trading within a $6.235-6.36 range.

Despite trading in a 15-cent range Wednesday, May natural gas futures ended the day up only 2.9 cents at $5.582 as focus turned to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) gas storage report, which is scheduled to be released at its regular time Thursday morning.