Monday, November 25, 2013

Natural Gas: Interesting Week Ahead

There was a reason we posted the temperature anomaly map last week, the first time since January 2013.
$3.77 settle, up 7 cents.
From RBN Energy:

Price Outlook:
Prices did continue higher with the market up now for 2 consecutive weeks while also slightly expanding he weekly range. The market again ended very near the weekly high and thus another new weekly high is expected. 53 of the 95 instances where there have two consecutive higher weeks witnessed a 3rd weekly high. Considering the Thanksgiving Holiday, volatility with low volume is very likely. The December contract will also expire this week.

The slide in the CFTC speculative net long position continued, but at a slower pace than recently. Total open interest across the complex rose to 4.69 million contracts as of November 19.
CME futures open interest dropped to 1.24 million contracts as of November 21. There is still a decent net long position and unlike crude where speculators have not been net short for years, natural gas speculators were net short as recently as March 2012. Additional selling could keep the market very defensive....MUCH MORE (5 page PDF)