The Front Of The Natural Gas Strip Keeps Deteriorating

Another trading day, another down day for prompt month natural gas. That is now 6 out of the last 7 trading days that have seen losses for the December natural gas contract, and yet even with further losses today we have not entirely closed the gap below. 

The continued trend recently has been losses almost entirely at the front of the natural gas strip as the weather has offered gradually less support. The result is that in the past week, the March 2018 contract is down almost 9 cents, with the April 2018 contract down less than a cent. 

Shown another way, the March/April H/J spread is back to annual lows even as prompt month prices are significantly above where they were the last time H/J was at these levels. 

Luckily for natural gas bulls, cash prices have been relatively firm this past week, limiting losses near the front of the strip and keeping the prompt month contract from selling off further in comparison to the rest of the winter strip. 

It is this type of analysis down the natural gas strip that we use to determine the role of weather in recent natural gas price action, and clearly the role has been significant as of late. Even today we saw shifting weather model guidance whipsaw prices yet again, as it is clear that heating demand expectations are in charge. For clients today we issued our Weekly Seasonal Report, which goes through our 5-month seasonal forecast to analyze which way GWDDs are likely to trend each month and see which natural gas contracts or spreads would accordingly appear mis-priced.