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Dan Dicker

Dan Dicker

Dan Dicker is a 25 year veteran of the New York Mercantile Exchange where he traded crude oil, natural gas, unleaded gasoline and heating oil…

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Is There Still Opportunity in the Natural Gas Space?

We’ve got to talk about natural gas, because it’s recently been by far the most volatile commodity and, truth be told, a fantastic long-term investment for the past year.  Is there still opportunity in the space? What should we make of this mercurial commodity now?

Look at a long-term chart of natural gas, and you’d have made quite a score over the last year, just by being long.  Since a spot price low of under $2/mcf in the spring of 2012, we saw futures top $5.50/mcf briefly yesterday before February futures expired.  Even my most hated ETF the United States natural gas fund (UNG) rallied from $18 to over $26 since early December.  

Much of this recent rally has obviously been due to extreme cold reaching far into the southland of the US.  The market itself is expressing the short-term nature of this phenomenon as well: While March is trading today at $5.10/mcf, futures for May are trading at $4.35/mcf and are under $4 as soon as the spring of 2015.  This deep level of backwardation in the curve of prices is a classic indication of short-term conditions impacting front month futures while not greatly impacting longer-term price expectations.  

But here’s the thing, and a most important thing it is:  futures curves of prices of most commodities are notoriously bad predictors of future price action.  Have a look at the recent activity of natural gas itself if you want proof.  After…




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
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