Open interest in natural gas futures markets prolonged the downtrend for yet another session on Friday, this time dropping by around 5.8K contracts according to preliminary readings from CME Group. Volume, instead, increased by nearly 100K contracts after two daily pullbacks in a row.

Natural Gas: Next target emerges at $3.00

Natural Gas prices extended the recovery and advanced to multi-week highs past $2.70 on Friday. The strong uptick was accompanied by declining open interest, which pours some cold water over the likelihood of further gains in the very near term. The next target on the upside appears at the March top just beyond the key $3.00 mark per MMBtu.