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The seasonal low point for natural gas is expected soon, and though no mainstream ETF has fared worse than UNG, favorable long entries—and big traps for short players—could lie ahead.

Running through the list of 52 exchange traded funds (ETFs) that I track through a comparative relative strength exploration reveals that once again, the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) ranks right at the absolute last-place position of all of them.

This isn’t all that surprising, given that UNG is off by more than 96% (yes, that’s right) since the natural gas/crude oil mania blowoff top printed in early-July 2008. UNG’s share price has been beaten senseless all the way down, with only a few tradable upswings here and there.

See also: A “Trap” for Energy ETF Traders

I’ve begun to take a closer look at this ETF lately, especially with a widely anticipated seasonal low pattern ready to be put to the test again. Seasonal charts reveal that natural gas futures tend to make some sort of a seasonal low sometime during the February/March time period, frequently offering attractive futures and options trading set-ups in the years when the pattern actually plays out.

See also: The 4 Key Seasonal Trends for 2012

Equities traders can now be afforded similar opportunities by trading UNG according to the same patterns, relieving them of the stress and risk of trading futures contracts while also allowing for greater control over their risk as they increase position sizes.

Think of it this way: if you are trading one natural gas futures contract and decided to add another one, your risk is now doubled. But what if you had only wanted to increase your position size by 10% or 20%? With futures contracts, you’re “outta luck” (unless you trade mini futures contracts, but again, it’s the same scaling size problem, only in a more manageable size), but if you are long 200 shares of UNG and want to increase your position by 20% (40 shares), you can do that very easily.

You have way more flexibility in this regard when trading stocks or ETFs as compared to futures contracts, and if you are a new trader, may I suggest that you learn to make money on a regular basis with commodity-linked ETFs before entering the shark-infested waters of the commodity futures markets.

If you can’t make consistent money with small, manageable risks as you trade ETFs like UNG, the United States Oil Fund (USO), the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), and the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), then you are probably going to be eaten alive by the deep-pocketed pros who trawl the metals and energy futures markets.

That’s just a word to the wise, and it might save you enough money to buy a new car, a year of college tuition, and so on.

Here are the worst-performing, commonly-traded ETFs based on their recent calendar quarter relative strength versus the S&P:

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NEXT: UNG Chart Shows Exhaustion Gap and Upside Possibilities

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