Natural gas is in a steady retreat Thursday as concerns about a long-term bear market are pushing traders back into a selloff. Natural gas for February delivery is down 7 cents, or 2.4%, at $2.904 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading volumes are light, but analysts said that will probably change and volatility is likely to pick back up after the federal government’s weekly storage update, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Stockpiles likely fell by 227 billion cubic feet of gas during the week ended Jan. 16, according to the average forecast of 19 analysts and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. That would be among the 20 largest draws on storage in EIA records dating back to 1994. But many traders have been looking past that and have focused on the chance that record supply could lead to a […]