Some extreme volatility in natural gas today. NYMEX futures were down as low as $3.33 US/mm in the morning, but in the afternoon, prices rallied considerably. The May front month contract settled at $3.74, up about 8% from yesterday’s settle. Then, once the price settled for the day, prices immediately started to fall again. It was quite crazy to watch happen. So far, May is down 7 cents.

Unsurprisingly, the jump stemmed from a big headline this afternoon: Trump has announced a pause on tariffs after all. He is still applying pressure on China and keeping a 10% blanket tariff on all imports, but the market seemed to appreciate this breathing room. Whether or not it stays is another story.

Although this is likely another situation where the fundamentals take a backseat in everyone’s minds, there are some small updates. According to the most recent weather models, we should be through the worst of this little cold snap, but it may take some time to truly get back to normal. Dawn storage had some small withdrawals lately, but the lower 48 is expecting an overall injection of +50 Bcf over last week. Note that the 5-year average for this time of year is a much smaller injection of +17 Bcf. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s storage report.