Near-term outlook is bearish for MCX-Natural Gas

The February contract of Natural Gas on the MCX is trading at ₹131.3, down 1 per cent, on Tuesday. The March contract is also down 1 per cent and is currently hovering at ₹133.40 an mmBtu.

Since encountering a key resistance at around ₹205 in early November 2019, the commodity has been in a medium-term downtrend. While trending down, it had decisively breached a key support at around ₹158 in late December 2019. This support later turned into a key resistance to cap the upside in mid-January this year and the contract plunged sharply. Since then, the short-term trend has been down for the contract.

After a corrective rally in the previous week, the contract met with a key barrier at ₹142 and resumed the downtrend. The daily relative strength index is on the brink of entering the bearish zone from the neutral region and the weekly RSI continues to feature in the bearish zone. Besides, both the daily and the weekly price rate of change indicators are hovering in the negative terrain indicating selling interest.

Overall, the short-term outlook is bearish for the contract. A decisive fall below the immediate support level of ₹130 can pull the contract down to ₹127 and ₹125 in the coming week.

On the global front, the generic first contract of Natural Gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) has been trending down since it had encountered a key barrier at $2.9 an mmBtu.

Trading strategy

The March futures contract of Natural Gas is trending down. Traders can make use of rallies to go short with stop-loss at ₹135.5. Consider booking profit at ₹130 or $127 levels.