Natural Gas Price Analysis: XNG/USD sits near three-week top, eyes 200-day SMA hurdle

• Natural Gas price consolidates the recent gains to a three-week high touched this Thursday.
• The technical setup favours bullish traders and supports prospects for further near-term gains.
• Pullbacks towards the $2.80-75 area could be seen as a buying opportunity and remain limited.

Natural Gas price touches a three-week high, around the $2.9220 area during the Asian session on Thursday, albeit lacks follow-through buying and now seems to have entered a bullish consolidation phase.

From a technical perspective, the recent goodish rebound from the vicinity of the 100-day Simple Moving Average (SMA), which coincided with the lower end of an ascending channel extending from the June swing low, favour bullish traders. Furthermore, oscillators on the daily chart are holding comfortably in the positive territory and support prospects for an extension of the recent rally witnessed over the past week or so.

That said, any subsequent move up is likely to confront some hurdle near the very important 200-day SMA, currently pegged just above the $3.0000 psychological mark. A sustained strength beyond the said handle will reaffirm the positive outlook and lift the XNG/USD towards the trend-channel barrier, around the $3.2450-$3.2500 region, which if cleared will be seen as a fresh trigger for bulls and pave the way for additional gains.

On the flip side, any meaningful pullback might now be seen as a buying opportunity and remain limited near the $2.8000-$2.7500 horizontal zone. Some follow-through selling, however, might expose the aforementioned confluence support, around the $2.600 area. Some follow-through selling below the latter will confirm the trend-channel breakdown and shift the near-term bias in favour of bearish traders.

XNG/USD daily chart