Spot natural gas prices (CFDS ON NATURAL GAS) rose in their recent trading at the intraday levels, to achieve daily gains until the moment of writing this report, by 2.59%, to settle at the price of $7,750 per million British thermal units. This is after falling slightly in trading on Friday and in a volatile session by It reached -0.46%. Over the past week, natural gas decreased by -3.84%.
Shockingly weak data from China confirmed the massive damage the lockdown is doing to the world's second-largest economy. China's retail sales for April fell 11.1% year-on-year, nearly double the autumn forecast, while industrial production fell 2.9% when it was Analysts are looking for a slight increase.
Monday's data overshadowed the news that Shanghai aims to reopen widely and allow normal life to resume from June 1.
China's central bank also disappointed those hoping for an interest rate cut, although on Sunday Beijing allowed an additional cut in mortgage rates for some home buyers.
Meanwhile, gas production in key regions of the United States has slowed this year, in part because of insufficient pipeline capacity. Bad weather also reduced production and increased demand. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions caused a scramble for US LNG exports, US LNG plants consumed 15% of domestic production in mid-March.
Increased demand from Europe, which is trying to get rid of Russian energy supplies, has led analysts to expect prices to remain high.
Technically, the main bullish trend dominates in the medium and short term, with the continuation of positive support for its trades above its simple moving average for the previous 50 days. In addition, we notice the start of positive signals on the relative strength indicators, after they reached oversold areas, as shown in the attached chart. for a period of time (daily).
Therefore, we expect natural gas to rise during its upcoming trading, as long as its stability is above the level of 7.368, to target the first resistance levels at 8.054, in preparation for attacking it.
