MW: Natural gas rises 1%, oil gains; SolarCity to report
Cold weather forecasts extend run in nat gas after 18% weekly gain; oil joins equities in drift higher
By Laura Mandaro, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Natural-gas futures Monday extended last week’s surge on calls for more cold weather, and oil prices inched higher as data showed financial investors had returned in droves to the commodity.
Natural gas for March delivery NGH14 -1.84% rose 1.1% to $6.20 per million British thermal units. Last week it rallied 18% as forecasts for more cold weather in the U.S. raised expectations of a supply drawdown. On Thursday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported weekly supplies had fallen below where they were a year ago.
Crude-oil futures for March delivery CLJ4 +0.20% rose 0.6% to $102.82 a barrel, gaining some ground after the U.S. open on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Stock-index futures also headed higher, buoyed in part by better sentiment from Europe, where Germany’s Ifo business-climate index rose to 111.3 in February, better than forecast and the fourth-straight month of gains.
Brent crude for April delivery UK:LCOJ4 +0.16% slipped 5 cents to $109.79 a barrel after rising as high as $110.24 a barrel.
Oil is getting some support from supply risks, including production outages in Libya, fighting in South Sudan and unrest in Venezuela, noted analysts at Commerzbank. What’s more, financial investors have been buying: Speculative net long positions in West Texas Intermediate crude climbed by more than 10% in the week ended February 18 to hit a record.
“This also means that correction potential has built up,” they wrote in a note Monday.
The dollar EURUSD -0.09% was slightly stronger against the euro, buying $1.37, as well as the yen.
Among energy equities, blue-chips Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM +1.47% and Chevron Corp. CVX +1.64% drifted higher premarket.
SolarCity SCTY +0.96% shares gained 1.1%. The Elon Musk-backed solar company reports earnings after the closing bell, one of several solar firms including First Solar Inc. FSLR +1.27% to report results this week.
