Natural gas futures slid on October 18 as participants raised their short bets as seen by the open interest. The gas price had slumped 2.72 percent last week on the MCX.
The energy commodity traded in the red since morning, tracking the weak overseas trend.
On the MCX, natural gas delivery for October tumbled Rs 16.30, or 3.97 percent, to Rs 394.30 per mmBtu at 14:40 hours with a business turnover of 4,400 lots.
Gas delivery for November declined by Rs 14.10, or 3.31 percent, to Rs 411.30 with a business volume of 2,604 lots.
The value of October and November contracts traded so far is Rs 1,133.55 crore and Rs 182.52 crore, respectively.
MCX Enrgdex advanced by 31 points or 0.48 percent at 6,465 at 14:42. The index tracks the real-time performance of MCX Crude Oil and MCX Natural Gas futures.
The short-term trend for natural gas has turned weak as the price slipped below the 5 and 20-days moving averages and stochastic RSI demonstrating overbought levels.
MCX Natural gas will trade in a range for the session with support at Rs 391- Rs 388 whereas resistance is at Rs 399 - Rs 402, said Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL).
The CFTC data showed that money managers cut their net long positions by 5,429 lots last week.
In its weekly report, Baker Hughes said the number of rigs drilling natural gas in the US dropped by 1 to 98 for the week to October 15.
Technicals
The commodity has been trading higher than 50, 100, and 200-day simple and exponential moving averages but lower than the 5 and 20 days SMA and EMA on the daily chart. The momentum indicator Relative Strength Index (RSI) is at 48.88, which indicates sideways movement in the price.
At 09:23 GMT, the natural gas price slipped 3.36 percent to $5.22 per mmBtu in New York.
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