Nat Gas Looking Higher

The key question for natural gas (looking at the nearby futures chart) is whether all of the action since the October 2 is a high-level consolidation area ahead of a forthcoming upside breakout. Or, whether a correction was completed from Oct 2 (3.546) to Oct 8 (3.327), which means that a new upleg already is in progress that projects sooner than later to 3.700.

With tomorrow's natural gas inventory data once again looming large, my intermediate- and longer-term technical work suggest strongly that the data will not have a lasting negative impact if worse-than-expected. However, if better-than-expected, this could trigger a vicious new up-spike to 3.700-3.750 in a hurry.

ETF traders may want to watch the U.S. Natural Gas Fund ETF (UNG) and the ProShares Ultra DJ-UBS Natural Gas (BOIL).