Thursday, April 12, 2012

Shares of Natural Gas Producers Rally on Misplaced Optimism (CHK; RRC; DVN)

Natgas futures were up 4% for a while too.  Last $1.992, up 4/10%.
From the AP via Yahoo:
Natural gas producers rebound on Wall Street as prices rise from 10-year lows

Shares of America's natural gas producers rose Thursday as commodity prices rebounded from 10-year lows.

Natural gas futures climbed back near $2 per barrel in midday trading in New York. That's still less than half of what they fetched a year ago. But investors still took the increase as a promising sign for companies that produce and sell gas such as Chesapeake Energy Corp., Range Resources Corp. and EQT Corp.

Shares of Chesapeake increased 3.3 percent while Range Resources and EQT Corp. increased between 1 and 2 percent. Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. natural gas producer, increased less than 1 percent. The broader averages rose about 1 percent....MORE 
From MarketBeat:
Goldman Sachs: Natural Gas Prices Won’t Rebound Until 2013
The steep decline in natural gas prices doesn’t appear to have any short-term fixes on the horizon.
Prices slipped below the $2 mark yesterday for the first time in more than 10 years, and many analysts say prices could go even lower through the summer.

Now you can add Goldman Sachs to that camp. In a research note this morning, the firm said there will be “sustained depressed prices” over the next few months.

“We expect the record storage overhang will lead to a turbulent summer as unprecedented coal-to-gas switching will be required to avoid breaching storage capacity before next winter,” wrote David Greely of Goldman Sachs.

He sees prices hovering around $2.10 a million British thermal units through the second and third quarters. Overall, the firm lowered its 2012 average price forecast to $2.40, from $3.10....MORE