Natural gas prices declined another percent and a half on the day today, settling at their lowest level since February 21st. 

This came as the entire strip sold off about equally, though the prompt month January contract saw a bit of strength off continued medium-term cold risks. 

Henry Hub cash prices came under fire today too, declining more than the January contract. 

Prices initially bounced after a large EIA storage draw beat expectations, with demand seeming to be a bit more impressive than expected. 

In a new screener we unveiled for clients today in our EIA Rapid Release, we showed how this print was historically very tight, as we drew a significant amount of gas given how much weather-driven demand we observed last week. 

As early as this past Monday in our Weekly Natural Gas Report for clients we had been warning that this report could surprise to the bullish side, and though or estimate was a bit too conservative we did end up seeing that bullish surprise. We similarly saw the support as expected from the report, at least initially. 

Yet a bearish run of the afternoon American GFS ensembles seemed to pull prices back down into the afternoon, as the model showed more long-range warm risks (something we warned about in our Note of the Day). Even still, we noted that H/J just ticked down slightly lower on the day despite broader selling along the strip. 

This gives us a lot to digest as we head into the day tomorrow, when traders will be working to manage risk and expectations for an extended three-day holiday weekend. Long-range weather forecasts are quite volatile right now, and significant changes can be expected over the weekend, meaning we can expect an active day of trading tomorrow. 

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