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Here's Why Natural Gas Prices Soared Today

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There was some good news for natural gas suppliers and investors but bad news for the people living the in the central and west-central areas of the United States.

Natural gas prices jumped 3% today after the latest weather report indicated a demand for heating could be high in the near future.

According to True Weather, in the next six to ten days, the western and eastern U.S. will experience above to well-above average temperatures as they move into more spring-like weather. The central U.S., however, will experience below normal or well-below normal temperatures.

The New York Mercantile Exchange raised the price on Wednesday for June delivery to $3.26/MMbtu (dollars per million btu), a 2.6% growth over Tuesday’s close.

The ETFs tracking natural gas are United States Natural Gas Fund UNG, VelocityShares Long Natural Gas ETN , and ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas (BOIL - Free Report) . UGAZ saw the most growth today, spiking 8.38% to $20.30.

Shares of oil and gas giants like Northwest Natural Gas Co. (NWN - Free Report) and Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (PTEN - Free Report) are among the gainers today, up 0.87% and up 1.73%, respectively.

Will the Rally Continue?

As weather warms up towards the month of June, heating demands are likely to drop. However, Midwesterners know how unpredictable the weather is until June comes, so there is still some time before natural gas stock falls.

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