February spiked to the highest settlement value for a monthly contract since September ’22 went off the board at $9.353. From the January low ($3.006) February rallied $4.821 to $7.827 in seven trading days before settling at $7.460. February rarely rallies into expiration. The February expiration event most similar in recent history was in late January ’22 when the expiring prompt , which had closed the previous day at $4.233 spiked to $7.346 before settling at $6.265. Expiring February ’26 traded a last day range of $1.927, and a last three day range (from the close on 01/23) of $2.552. March gas is almost always discount to February. Last year the discount was $.365, which was pretty typical of recent years. In ’22 February was $1.982 premium to March at expiration, this year a historically exceptional $3.728.
Six times in the last twenty years March has made up that discount to settle higher than February. It did in ’25 and in ’18 (those are the last two years that March settled premium to Feb, in ‘18 March’s discount was $.464 but did not in ’22.
