Daily Market Update December 3, 2019
Early Morning Update
The Jan20 natural gas contract is trading up $0.07 at $2.40. The Jan20 crude oil contract is down $0.16 at $55.80.
Summary
As near-term weather forecasts continue their shift towards warmer-than-normal temperatures, most of yesterday’s trading activity in the natural gas market was focused around the balance of winter. The prompt month rose 4.8 cents to settle at $2.329/MMBtu. The Jan’20-Mar’20 natural gas contracts each strengthened by about five cents from the new market-wide lows that were established last Friday. Despite the bearish weather outlook for the next few weeks, market participants may perceive that winter prices have hit rock-bottom, causing a surge in demand from short-covering, which provided the slight boost for prices. For reference, Q1’20 settled just shy of $2.30 on Monday, while Q1’19 landed at $3.15, not including the $4.72 settlement price from December 2018. It may be advantageous to cover any open short or long-term natural gas positions at current market prices, before the next round of winter cold appears.
Loading please wait...