“As we get deep into summer months, we get volatility,” Nicholas Koutsoftas, a portfolio manager at Cohen & Steers, told the WSJ. “Any deviation from the norm will cause big moves in the natural gas market.”
Related: Natural Gas ETF Heats Up While Rest of the Market Cools
Traders are also betting on the summer cooling demand to pressure stockpiles even further. On London’s Intercontinental Exchange, EIA end-of-storage index futures reveal bets that October will end with 3.525 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or the lowest for that time since 2008.
“It’s amazing what this market has absorbed to be here,” Jacob Meisel, chief weather analyst at Bespoke, told the WSJ. “Temporarily, you could see weather exacerbate this further.”
For more information on the natgas market, visit our natural gas category.