• Natural Gas drops to the fresh low since August 2020, grinds near multi-day bottom of late.
• XNG/USD drops as US Dollar cheers fresh risk-off mood, pre-NFP anxiety to pare recent losses.
• Downbeat China Caixin Manufacturing PMI adds strength to bearish bias.

Natural Gas (XNG/USD) price ignores the Oil’s rally and drops to a fresh 33-month low around $2.13 during early Monday. The energy instrument’s latest weakness could be linked to concerns surrounding warmer weather in the West, as well as the US Dollar’s latest rebound ahead of the key jobs report for March.

That said, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia, known as OPEC+, renewed inflation woes by announcing a surprise 1.16 million barrels per day of an output cut. With this, the traders may reassess the previous optimism suggesting easy inflation days to come, which in turn favors the central policymakers to defend their hawkish bias and allow the US Dollar to lick its wounds. That said, the US Dollar Index (DXY) is by 0.33% intraday near 102.32 by the press time.

Not only the OPEC+ induced inflation fears and the firmer US dollar but the downbeat PMI data from China also weighed on the XNG/USD prices.

As per the latest readings, China’s Caixin Manufacturing PMI for March drops to 50.0 from 51.6 prior and 51.7 market forecasts.

On a different page, talks of warmer weather in the West joins more gas supplies from Germany also exert downside pressure on the XNG/USD prices.

Amid these plays, the Natural Gas price may remain pressured toward the levels marked in the year 2020 surrounding $1.53. However, today’s US ISM Manufacturing PMI and S&P Global Manufacturing PMI for March can offer intraday directions to the commodity prices ahead of Friday’s US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP).

Technical analysis

Unless crossing a two-month-old horizontal resistance area surrounding $2.40, the Natural Gas price becomes vulnerable to test the April 2020 high of $2.10 and then fall to the $2.00 psychological magnet.