DJ Natural Gas Rising on Profit Taking
By Timothy Puko
NEW YORK--Natural-gas prices inched up Thursday, as traders took advantage of
Wednesday's losses and positioned themselves ahead of a weekly update on
stockpiles.
Natural gas for September delivery is up 1.6 cents, or 0.4%, at $3.847 a
million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract
is recovering from its biggest move in nearly a month, a 3.6% loss in
Wednesday's session.
Short-sellers, traders who bet prices would fall, likely took advantage of
that move and bought back in Thursday morning to close out those bets and lock
in profits, analysts said. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will give
its weekly update on natural gas storage at 10:30 a.m. ET and many traders will
make small moves to lock in positions ahead of that news, analysts said.
Wednesday's session cancelled out more than a week of incremental gains,
adding to signs that there were few consumers and believers in long-term price
gains in the market to begin with, analysts and brokers said. A record supply
of gas without enough demand to absorb it has kept them out, and only technical
traders and short-sellers have led small spurts of buying, they said.
"The momentum, pure momentum is for something lower here," said Tom Saal, a
broker at INTL FCStone Latin America in Miami.
Physical gas for next-day delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana last traded
at $3.83/mmBtu, compared with Wednesday's range of $3.84-$3.90. Cash prices at
the Transco Z6 hub in New York were last at $2.40/mmBtu, compared with
Wednesday's range of $2.48 to $2.54.
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 14, 2014 09:42 ET (13:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
081414 13:42 -- GMT
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