Natural gas up 4th week in 5 but still stuck at lower $2s

Investing.com -- On paper, natural gas looks good, closing up for a fourth week in five. For the bulls in the trade, though, that has barely moved the needle on prices stuck in the lower $2 range.

The front-month gas contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub settled at $2.266 per metric million British thermal units on Friday. That was 3.5% up on the day and 6% higher from a week ago.

The gains come after last week’s particularly sharp selloff of more than 11% that left the market up by a net 11% as well over the past five weeks.

Gas futures have been stuck at mid-$2 or lower since mid-March from benign weather that has created little need for either heating or cooling. Topping that has been robust production of the fuel, which has steadily added to the glut in gas supply.

As of last week, total gas stored in underground caverns in the United States stood at 2.141 trillion cubic feet, or tcf. That was 31.2% higher from the year-ago level of 1.632 tcf and 18.4% above the five-year average of 1.809 tcf.

Notwithstanding the relative stability of $2 pricing, Henry Hub’s front-month is down more than 50% on the year since the end of last year.

Charts indicate little immediate change in the fortunes of gas bulls, said Sunil Kumar Dixit, chief technical strategist at SKCharting.com.

“A daily and weekly close above $2.40 will be initial signs of a resumption of the uptrend in Henry Hub’s front-month, to be affirmed by a clearing through of the swing high of $2.55,” Dixit said.

Beyond that, sits the longer-term target of 100-day Simple Moving Average, he said, adding:

“The flip side is that a steady dip beneath the 5-day Exponential Moving Average, or EMA of $2.19, will keep the downside momentum going. That could invite potential drops to $2.04 and $1.94.”