Wednesday, January 31st saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contracts open at $3.062, thirteen cents below Tuesday’s closing price of $3.195. Technical trading drove markets lower overnight as traders reached consensus that the contract was overbought. Continuing its downward trend, prices fell to the $3.02 level by 10:00AM and tallied a three-week intraday low of $2.960 ninety minutes later. Despite forecasts for seasonal short-term weather in the Northeast, long-term forecasts for the rest of the country are raising concerns for the rate at which storage levels are shrinking. Modest gains into the afternoon saw March close lower on Wednesday at $2.995.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report is due out at 10:30AM today. The report is expected to show a 102 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended January 27th. This compares to an 87 BCF withdrawal at this time last year and a five-year average withdrawal amount of 160 BCF.
This morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 70 cents; Natural Gas was down nine cents; Heating Oil was up two cents; and, Gasoline was up one cent.
Natural Gas Glossary
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