A second straight weak weekly close strengthens the technical presumption that prompt gas will be offered lower before April goes off the board. Readers may recall that expiring March traded the low of its life before reversing higher the day it went to settlement, February didn’t but did settle at a five day low.
It has been a long time since prompt gas traded a total range of $.122 during the week and even longer time since the average range for the last fifteen days was $.101. In late July last summer, the low ebb of the ATR did not quite reach the zone. The low calculation was $.117. The daily continuation chart shows that there was something of an immediate oversold rally but on balance prompt gas worked sideways to higher for a couple of months before kicking off on the Q4 ’23 rally. The low calculation on June 24, 2020 was $.0739, on April 28, 2021 $.0731. The periods that followed those calculations were strikingly similar, as price moved sideways to higher. The low volatility sideways to higher trade gave the lagging weekly calculation the time to catch up. In ’20 the weekly ATR fell to $.237 before a serious rally began. In ’21 to $.187 before a similar result. Currently the weekly calculation is $.396. Due to the ATR covering 15 weeks, another month will have to pass before the high range weeks that traded during January fall out of the calculation, but it will not take many weeks with a range of only $.122 for the weekly ATR to approach its historically bullish zone.
