After watching the market tumble 7.1 cents lower Monday, naturalgas bulls at the New York Mercantile exchange dug in their heelsyesterday as prices careened off support in the low $2.70s andmoved higher throughout the session. By virtue of its 3.7-centadvance and $2.751 settlement, the April contract nudged its wayback up well within the $2.67-90 trading range that has limitedprice movement since March 1. The May contract followed suit,trading up 3.7 cents to finish at $2.781, in a session that sawmoderate activity of 57,862.

A broker was quick to point to the market’s inability to probebeneath support, first during Monday’s regular session, and thenagain during the Access overnight trading as a harbinger of theprice advance seen yesterday. Also a factor was cash prices, whichrefused to trend lower in sympathy with the futures downturnMonday. NGI’s Henry Hub price for today is a $2.75, up two cents onthe day.

If yesterday’s rebound to the mid-$2.70s seems like a little bitof market d‚j… vu, you might want to take a look back at the lastcouple of weeks. According to an astute chart watcher, the Aprilcontract has homed back to equilibrium in the mid-$2.70s each ofthe last three Wednesday’s just prior to the release of freshstorage data from the American Gas Association. However, once thatreport was announced, the market has quickly moved away from thatequilibrium, spiking higher late in the session March 1 and March15, while trending lower March 8.

And while past performance is no guarantee of future results,the market is poised for more of the same when the AGA releasesfresh data this afternoon. Preliminary expectations are centered ona net withdrawal of 40-60 Bcf, which would top last week’s 31 Bcffigure, but fall short of last year’s 87 Bcf takeaway.Alternatively, Tom Saal of Miami-based Pioneer Futures, estimatescooler weather last week took its toll on storage stocks to thetune of 65 Bcf.

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