Natural-gas stockpiles are recovering faster than estimated from a winter battering in the U.S., with prices now 30 percent below a peak in February. Hedge funds reduced their bets on a rally for a fifth week and to the lowest level since December, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Prices dropped 5.7 percent in May as inventory gains surpassed analysts’ estimates for four consecutive weeks. Stockpiles are now 40 percent below the five-year average level, compared with 50 percent in April. “We’ve had a pretty mild May and that’s raised hopes that these big storage injections will continue all summer,” Phil Flynn , a senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago , said by phone May 30. “There’s growing optimism about the supply picture.” Natural gas fell 4.7 cents, or 1 percent, to $4.505 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange in […]