April Gas Trends Lower On Milder End Of March And Loosening Supply/Demand Balances
The April natural gas contract settled down over 2% today as weather forecasts trended unimpressive through the day with balances doing little to support prices and cash trading weakly ahead of a weekend with one of the last cold shots of the season.
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The April contract led the whole curve lower after it led the way higher yesterday.
We were all over this for clients, with our sentiment in our Afternoon Update yesterday turning bearish.
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Our Morning Update also outlined the bearish risks to natural gas prices we saw through the day, highlighting a test of $2.8 likely "into early next week" following the gap fill we were watching at $2.856.
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This came despite some slightly colder trends on overnight weather model guidance.
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Then afternoon weather model guidance moderated further, keeping the front of the natural gas curve under pressure (images courtesy of Tropical Tidbits).
This came as we saw little in daily balance data to indicate prices were likely to bounce back, as Canadian imports were seen recovering a bit too despite lower production the last few days.
Disclaimer: To begin receiving both our technical and fundamental analysis of the natural gas market on a daily basis, and view our various models breaking down weather by natural gas demand ...
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Natural gas is very seasonal so it is no wonder natural gas prices are dropping. If it wasn't it would be a surprise. I don't think this is an economic indicator of anything more than seasonality. Ont thing to note is natural gas is increasingly being supplied to China via Russia and others which the trade war has made the US a loser given we have tons of natural gas as we plunder our oil reserves.
Good comments, I've followed you.