Natural-Gas Psychology Bearish; Perhaps an Opportunity Igniting ..

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Large noncommercial traders increased their net-short position in natural-gas futures by 2.8% during the week ended Feb. 8, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reported Friday.

Speculative, or noncommercial, traders added 4,163 contracts to their long position in futures-only contracts and 10,285 contracts to their short position, yielding a net-short position of 225,254 contracts, up 6,122 from the previous week.

Open interest was 898,069, up 8% from the previous week.

In futures and options combined, noncommercial traders were net short 190,857 contracts, up 8,240 from the previous week.

Commercial traders were net long in futures-only contracts by 185,148 contracts. These traders added 25,184 contracts to their long position and 13,017 contracts to their short position.

The net long position is the difference between the number of long positions, or bets prices will rise, and short positions, or bets prices will fall.

Benchmark Nymex natural-gas futures fell by 7.1% during the week covered by the CFTC data.

Week Ended Previous
Feb. 8 Week
NYMEX GAS FUTURES ONLY
Long
Noncommercial 143,752 139,589
Commercial 390,365 365,181
Short
Noncommercial 369,006 358,721
Commercial 205,217 192,200
NYMEX GAS FUTURES AND OPTIONS COMBINED
Long
Noncommercial 173,055 170,691
Commercial 397,559 371,160
Short
Noncommercial 363,912 353,308
Commercial 249,169 235,762

Money managers, such as hedge funds, increased their net-short position in Nymex natural-gas futures to 141,542 contracts in the week, up 21,255 contracts from the previous week, after cutting long contracts and adding short contracts.

The CFTC began splitting large traders into four categories in September 2009. Money managers and other reportables comprise the previous "noncommercial" column, while swap dealers and producers, merchants, processors and users were broken out of the commercial category.

Week Ended Previous
Feb. 8 Week
NYMEX GAS FUTURES ONLY
Long
Producers/Users 56,432 51,977
Swap Dealers 259,295 251,951
Money Managers 118,228 120,361
Other Reportables 25,524 19,228
Short
Producers/Users 91,510 92,515
Swap Dealers 39,069 38,432
Money Managers 259,770 240,648
Other Reportables 109,236 118,073

NYMEX GAS FUTURES AND OPTIONS COMBINED
Long
Producers/Users 61,503 56,038
Swap Dealers 229,905 223,715
Money Managers 147,618 151,349
Other Reportables 25,436 19,342
Short
Producers/Users 94,044 95,077
Swap Dealers 48,975 49,278
Money Managers 259,699 239,576
Other Reportables 104,213 113,713

-By Matt Day, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-4986; matt.day@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 11, 2011 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
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