The steady grind lower in natural gas prices continued today, with the April natural gas contract settling down a percent on the day.
As has been the recent trend, the April contract logged the largest loss along the front of the strip.
The result is a rather impressive decline in the J/V spread. After stabilizing late in February into early March as flat price rose, it has plummeted the last two weeks to fresh lows.
Thus this April/October contract spread is closer to the historical average as we head towards expiry.
This comes as other spreads have moved to new lows as well, such as J/K.
It is clear that this April weakness is isolated, though, with some other spreads like the October/January V/F spread more flat on the week.
These are just some of the spreads we track for clients on a daily basis, using them to determine weather's influence in the natural gas market and analyze risk appropriately. We break them down for clients and explain what they demonstrate about current market balance and catalysts. We often will also see certain spreads as over or under-valued, generating ideas along the natural gas strip for those looking to avoid just playing flat price as well.