Managed

One Western Canada point managed to be the exception to overall double-digit price declines continuing Friday. Forecasts of unseasonably moderate late-November temperatures in many areas again were the primary drag on spot quotes, abetted by the usual drop of industrial load during a weekend. As a producer had predicted, Thursday’s rally of 8.8 cents by December futures was unable to induce a similar response in the cash market.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is “cautiously optimistic” about natural gas prices, but drilling activity will be managed by following cash prices and reacting to what’s happening in the “real market” before spending more than cash flow, CEO Jim Hackett said last week.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is “cautiously optimistic” about natural gas prices, but drilling activity will be managed by following cash prices and reacting to what’s happening in the “real market” before spending more than cash flow, CEO Jim Hackett said Tuesday.

Heating load is waning a bit in some regions, but the cash market still managed to find enough weather-based demand — along with getting modest support from a prior-day increase of 5.4 cents by November futures — to post strong double-digit gains across the board Tuesday.

November natural gas futures retreated Friday as fund and managed account traders made technically based sales, momentarily taking some money off the table while awaiting a chance to reenter the market on the long side next week.

November natural gas futures managed to carve out a modest gain Wednesday as traders were expecting a bounce from Tuesday’s losses and brokers were locking in Rocky Mountain basis and buying protective put options.

There were no blizzards or major heat waves in the near-term sights of the weather radar, but spot prices managed to rebound by large amounts across the board Tuesday from the depths to which they had sunk on Friday. They did have support from both Friday’s 22-cent futures gain (which broke a string of downward sessions) and the return of industrial load from the extra losses it incurs on a holiday weekend.

The cash market managed to scrape together enough cooling demand to record gains at virtually all points Monday, even with the negative guidance of the previous Friday’s 9-cent decline by September futures. The return of industrial load from its weekend decline provided a little additional support.

Since the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) is a passively managed commodity index fund with a “neutral” investment strategy, the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC) should free it and other exchange-traded commodity index funds from position limits and grant them “no-action” status with respect to their activities, the fund manager said in a CFTC filing recently.