NEW YORK, Jan 12, 2026, 07:02 EST — Premarket
- U.S. Natural Gas Fund (UNG) showed a roughly 4% gain in premarket trading, bouncing back after a steep fall on Friday.
- NYMEX February natural gas futures edged up early Monday as traders reevaluated U.S. temperature forecasts.
- Attention shifts to Thursday’s EIA storage report, with traders watching to see if mid-January’s cold snap impacts demand.
Shares of the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) showed gains in Monday’s premarket, following a rebound in U.S. natural gas futures. The bounce comes after a selloff late last week, driven by forecasts for warmer weather. 1
This shift is crucial since weather has been behind the daily swings in gas prices, with traders relying on funds like UNG to play short-term moves. Winter demand can flip fast, and the market responds just as swiftly.
The stage is set for a volatile week. A change in the mid-January temperature forecast or Thursday’s storage report could jolt the front-month contract—and ripple through gas-linked ETFs.
UNG last traded pre-market at $10.79, per Investing.com, after closing Friday at $10.40—a 7.72% drop. Volume hit about 41.1 million shares Friday, far exceeding its three-month average near 15.9 million, the data revealed. 1
February Henry Hub natural gas futures hovered near $3.26 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) early Monday, gaining roughly 3% on the day following a drop to a 2.5-month low last Friday. 2
The rebound comes after new model forecasts showed colder weather spreading over much of the country, despite forecasts for weak near-term demand lasting a few days. 3
“Daily weather-driven demand could hit a short-term low” before bouncing back, EBW Analytics senior analyst Eli Rubin said in a note picked up by Dow Jones Newswires. He also pointed to “increasing consensus” around a “chilly back half of January.” 4
Storage continues to weigh heavily. According to the EIA, working gas in underground storage was 3,256 billion cubic feet for the week ending Jan. 2, marking a 119 Bcf drop from the previous week. Inventories remained roughly 31 Bcf above the five-year average but were down 3.6% compared to the same time last year, the agency’s data revealed. 5
Leverage is pushing the moves further. ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas (BOIL), a 2x leveraged fund, dropped roughly 13.6% in the last session. Meanwhile, the inverse ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Natural Gas (KOLD) climbed about 13.9%.
That said, the outlook isn’t one-sided. Should forecasts turn warmer once more, or if storage withdrawals fall short of projections, the front-month contract might slip back toward last week’s lows, dragging the ETFs down too.
