Natural-gas prices closed higher Monday for the first time in a week, likely from a mix of technical trading and optimism about the chances for early-season heating demand, analysts and brokers said. The front-month October contract settled up 8.3 cents, or 2.2%, at $3.876 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The move broke a four-session losing streak and brought natural gas back into the middle of a 29-cent range that gas has traded in for almost all of the last eight weeks. Cool forecasts are probably playing a major role, said Aaron Calder, senior market analyst at energy-consulting firm Gelber & Associates in Houston. Temperatures in the Rockies and the Upper Midwest could reach as much as 15 degrees Fahrenheit below normal, and Mr. Calder said in a note that the prospects for a first frost have some traders looking […]