Today's action via FinViz:
Natural Gas Rebounds on Cold Weather Forecast
Natural-gas futures rebounded Thursday as cold forecasts raised expectations for increased demand for the heating fuel and overshadowed data showing a large supply surplus.
A blast of Arctic air likely to descend next week propped up prices despite record supply from the U.S. drilling boom. If gains hold, it would put the market on an eight-session winning streak, tied for the longest in more than eight years.
MDA Weather Services is predicting a “polar outbreak” for two-thirds of the U.S. next week. Arctic air will bring near-record cold, temperatures more than 13 degrees below normal to New York, Chicago, Washington, Dallas and Houston, the agency said. The number of heating degree days—a measure of how often consumers likely needed to use gas heat—is likely to be 20% larger this November than the month’s 10-year average, according to Citigroup Inc.
Natural gas recently traded up 6 cents, or 1.4%, at $4.254 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had dipped to as low as $4.111/mmBtu after federal officials announced a record surplus put into storage last week, but the market started rebounding almost immediately.
“The prospect of strong heating demand...has given bargain-minded investors an excuse to rush back into the U.S. natural-gas market,” said Teri Viswanath, a natural-gas strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York. “The market has...put the robust summer injection season behind it.”
Producers capped a record year for storage refill with a 91-billion-cubic-feet addition to stockpiles last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday morning. That is 5 bcf larger than analysts’ and traders’ expectations, and more than double the typical addition for that week of the year. It is also 17% larger than any addition for the last week of October listed in EIA records dating back through 1994....MORE
