{"id":28253,"date":"2026-08-18T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/?p=28253"},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:21:09","slug":"the-best-time-to-buy-something-is-when-its-on-clearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/the-best-time-to-buy-something-is-when-its-on-clearance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Time to Buy Something Is When It’s On Clearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s August. Temperatures are rising. And yet…<\/p>\n

It’s time to buy natural gas.<\/p>\n

Sure, nobody is interested in heating their homes. So, nobody wants natural gas. And, unsurprisingly, the price of natural gas has been falling.<\/p>\n

But, that’s exactly why we should buy it now.<\/p>\n

Think about it…<\/p>\n

The best time to buy a ski jacket isn’t in the middle of winter when everybody wants one. It’s in the springtime, when nobody is thinking about snow.<\/p>\n

The best time to buy a swimsuit is in October, when stores are pushing Halloween candy, and the summer items are on clearance.<\/p>\n

And, the best time to buy natural gas is in August.<\/p>\n

Look at this long-term chart of natural gas…<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

The price of natural gas tends to bottom sometime in late July\/early August, and then rally through October. In 2023, for example, natural gas rallied 40% in those three months. It gained over 50% in 2024. And, last year, the price of natural gas nearly doubled between early August and late October.<\/p>\n

Of course, that doesn’t guarantee we’ll see the same sort of action this year. Nothing is ever guaranteed in the financial markets. And, natural gas is notoriously difficult to trade.<\/p>\n

But, the decline over the past six weeks has pushed natural gas down towards its low for 2026. And, and with its seasonal tendency to bottom in August and rally through October, the recent decline is giving traders a lower-risk opportunity for a bullish trade.<\/p>\n

Aggressive traders can consider buying shares of United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG)<\/a> in order to take advantage of this setup.<\/p>\n

And, if you’re looking for a leveraged play, the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas Fund (BOIL)<\/a> is a double-levered ETF.<\/p>\n

In other words, BOIL is structured to return twice the daily return of natural gas. So, if natural gas gains 5%, BOIL – in theory – would gain 10%.<\/p>\n

Either way, I expect both UNG and BOIL will be trading higher a few weeks from now than where they are today.<\/p>\n

Best regards and good trading,<\/p>\n

\"Signature\"<\/p>\n

Jeff Clark
\nEditor, Market Minute<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natural gas has a seasonal tendency to bottom in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2759,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[7],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-28253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-jeff-clark"],"acf":[],"ai_tts_audio_outdated":false,"ai_tts_content_changed_at":"","ai_tts_content_changed_during_generation":false,"ai_tts_legacy_post":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28262,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28253\/revisions\/28262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28253"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=28253"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=28253"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=28253"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=28253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}