Naturalgas settled up 0.32% at 247.70 caped first monthly gains since April. At the beginning of the week gas already started to climb on bets that stockpiles will expand at a faster than normal pace. The prices were also pushed higher by above-normal weather expectations from Texas to the Northeast in the first week of September, according to MDA Weather Services. Investors edged the commodity up betting that while a strong heat wave is unlikely next week or after, neither are large early September cool snaps despite falling temperatures here and there. "As we were expecting, weather patterns have been more favorable recently, which have eased bearish headwinds. But the end of summer is upon us, and there is nothing in the weather data that suggests there will be a last gasp of intense summer heat," Natgasweather.com reported in its Friday mid-day update. "There will still be times where 80s to near 90F pushes into northern U.S., such as into the Midwest and Northeast, but cooler Canadian weather systems will not make It easy for any significant heat to set up for any length of time. We still expect a much more comfortable pattern to play out going into the second week of September, which will begin a string of much larger weekly builds." On Thursday, the U.S. EIA reported that inventories rose 75bcf to 2.63 trillion in the week ending Aug. 22, missing market calls for a build of 78 billion, which gave the commodity some support on Friday. Technically market is under fresh buying as market has witnessed gain in open interest by 13.57% to settled at 7304 while prices up 0.8 rupee, now Naturalgas is getting support at 245.6 and below same could see a test of 243.5 level, And resistance is now likely to be seen at 249, a move above could see prices testing 250.3.

Trading Ideas:

Naturalgas trading range for the day is 243.5-250.3.

Natural gas prices ended with gains on bets that stockpiles will expand at a faster than normal pace.

The prices were also pushed higher by above-normal weather expectations from Texas to the Northeast in the first week of September

Weather-forecasting models have called for above-normal temperatures to settle over the eastern U.S.