Spot natural gas prices (CFDS ON NATURAL GAS) settled on an increase in their recent trading at the intraday levels, recording slight daily losses until the moment of writing this report, by -0.46%. It settled at the price of $8.735 per million British thermal units, after rising slightly during yesterday’s trading by 0.83%.
Natural gas futures were volatile on Tuesday, as traders assessed a slight increase in production, a mixed domestic climate outlook, continued uncertainty in Europe and the imminent expiration of the June contract. Nymex June gas futures eventually settled at $8.796 per million British thermal units, up 5.2 cents on the day, and had advanced about 66 cents the day before. The July contract rose nine-tenths of a cent to $8,836 on Tuesday. June begins to issue contracts as the spot month on Thursday after options expire on Wednesday. Futures contracts have usually proven volatile before expiring this year.
Despite the volatility on Tuesday, the bulls eventually won, and the price closed higher as US LNG demand remained strong and production slumped.
LNG volumes topped 13 billion cubic feet this week, building momentum back toward the record 14 billion cubic feet reached before the spring maintenance season. European demand for US supplies of liquefied fuels is steady as countries across the continent cut ties with Moscow.
Technically, the price stopped at the pivotal resistance level 8.870 due to its need to gain some positive momentum that might help it attack that resistance. This is due to the dominance of the main bullish trend in the medium term along a slope line, and with continuous positive pressure for its trading above its simple moving average for the previous 50 days. In addition, we notice the continuation of positive signals on the RSI indicators.
Therefore, our expectations remain neutral, waiting for the price's behavior around the resistance level 8.870, in the event that natural gas succeeds in breaching that resistance, this is a confirmation from it to complete the ascending journey, to target the resistance level 9.550.
