Monday, December 22, 2014

Natural Gas Hits Two Year Low (CHK; APC)

Sometimes you get lucky.
On Friday it was just a casual comment:
UPDATED--Natural gas: EIA Weekly Supply/Demand Report
While some desks are betting on a cold snap around the New Year it looks as though supply has the upper hand unless there is one heck of a cold snap. $3.598 down 0.044....
Repeated in that afternoon's "Natural Gas Futures Drop to Lowest Point in Over a Year":
Most active (Jan.) $3.481 down 0.161 (4.42%); low 3.464....
The country's largest independent gas producer, Chesapeake, is down 6.70%, the Revere natural gas ETF is down 4.07%, and front month futures are down 8.14% on the day and 12% since Friday.
Here's the hourly chart for the last two weeks from FinViz:
From the Wall Street Journal:
Natural Gas Slides to Nearly Two-Year Low on Slow Stockpile Drain
Natural gas prices fell to nearly a two-year low Monday as a slow stockpile drain eases investors’ concerns about supply shortages during the winter heating season.

Natural gas for January delivery was down 33.1 cents, or 9.5%, at $3.133 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the biggest one-day percentage loss since February, and the lowest intraday price since January 2013.

The contract slid about 10 cents as soon as electronic trading opened Sunday evening, but losses have continued throughout the morning.

Prices are now down more than 15% in three straight losing sessions. Natural gas has moved into a bear market during that streak and is down 30% from the six-month high closing price of $4.489/mmBtu it hit just a month ago.

Weather has been unseasonably warm for December, limiting demand for home heating and allowing relatively low stockpiles to catch up to where they were a year ago. That has encouraged the belief that supply is relatively healthy and emboldened traders to sell, even with meteorologists predicting a colder-than-normal January and February are on the way....MORE