Natural gas continues to stay firm after over 4% rise last week, money managers cut net long positions

Natural gas futures traded firm on November 1 as traders raised their bullish bets as seen by the open interest. The gas price had risen by Rs 16.90 or 4.31 percent last week on the MCX.

The energy commodity recouped morning losses and turned green in the afternoon session, tracking the positive overseas cues.

On the MCX, natural gas delivery for November was slightly up - by Rs 2, or 0.49 percent, to Rs 411 per mmBtu at 2.31 pm with a business turnover of 4,806 lots.

Gas delivery for December gained by Rs 1.80, or 0.43 percent, to Rs 418.90 with a business volume of 855 lots.

The value of November and December contracts traded so far stood at Rs 335.22 crore and Rs 31.71 crore, respectively.

MCX Enrgdex soared by 6 points or 0.09 percent at 6,494 at 2.32 pm. The index tracks the real-time performance of MCX Crude Oil and MCX Natural Gas futures.

"MCX Natural gas will trade with negative bias for the session with support placed at Rs 403.30 - Rs 400 levels whereas resistance is at Rs 410 - Rs 413.50," said Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL).

The CFTC data showed that money managers cut their speculative net long positions by 10,039 lots last week.

In its weekly report, Baker Hughes said the number of rigs drilling natural gas in the US rose by 1 to 100 for the week to October 29.

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 50.88, which indicates a sideways trend in the price.

At 9.08 am GMT, the natural gas price gained 1.05 percent to $5.48 per mmBtu in New York.

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