Cent

Sparked by eastern cold and the expectation of significant natural gas storage draws in the near future, March natural gas futures on Thursday rebounded to claim a 10.4-cent gain and closed the regular session at $5.396.

Coming off Monday’s cold-induced 31.2-cent gain, the natural gas futures market reversed course Tuesday as the February contract trimmed 24.7 cents to close at $5.637. Despite the retracement, some traders believe the bulls — with weather on their side — still have their eye on another test of the psychological $6 level.

January natural gas futures were able to regain some of Monday’s 11.3-cent loss in Tuesday trading, which was largely devoid of meaningful direction. With little in the way of fresh news to motivate traders, attention turned to the more distant portions of the price curve where longer-term opportunities may lurk. At the close of trading January futures rose 4.6 cents to $5.715 and February added 6.0 cents to $5.712. February crude oil gained 68 cents to $74.40/bbl.

Natural gas futures bulls on a three-day 65.5-cent run higher ran into somewhat of a wall Wednesday after putting in a $5.230 high in the overnight Tuesday trading session. Despite the frigid winter storm currently battering a number of U.S. regions, the January contract during Wednesday’s regular session put in a low of $4.880 before closing out the day at $4.898, down 21.6 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

A 7.1-cent drop by prompt-month futures a day earlier and the usual negative impact of industrial load loss over a weekend were outweighed by forecasts of continued near-freezing lows in much of North America in rallying most of the cash market to moderate gains Friday.

Following major spikes everywhere to open the trading week, the market was mixed Tuesday but dominated by mostly mild softness. A 34.4-cent giveback by December futures Monday proved more influential to cash traders than the prospects of increasing cold weather later this week.

Monday’s 22.1-cent drop in December natural gas futures to $4.824 had traders debating whether the rally from Sept. 4 was now officially over or whether the pullback represented a mere pit stop on the way to yet higher values.

Continuing cold in a number of weekend forecasts, abetted to some degree by the previous day’s 4.6-cent gain by November futures, kept a majority of points on the rise Friday. However, anticipation of milder weather returning to several areas early this week combined with the usual weekend decline of industrial load to induce softness at a greater number of locations than on Thursday.

Although heating load remains fairly strong across Canada and most of the northern half of the U.S. (and to some extent in parts of the South), the 29.2-cent downturn by November futures a day earlier had its expected effect of dragging most cash prices lower Wednesday.