While a late-winter cold snap or cool spring could whittle down some of the storage surplus, it is probably too late to prevent stocks from ending the heating season at record-high levels.

As we get toward the end of the winter season and early spring, we'll probably go through another wave of elevated energy prices, and it will bode ill for discretionary consumer spending. Consumer spending might be rather lackluster for some time, perhaps a year or two. In the end we're going to [see] a consumer that's saving more, is more cautious, and a little more spendthrift.

Still, brimming stocks should keep any rally in check, late week cold notwithstanding.

A late Easter, a long cold spring.

Last year began with a large surplus but an unusually hot summer ate up those reserves and soon thereafter the hurricanes hit. There is still some infrastructure that was damaged, which could be a problem.

After the Democratic nominee is all but certain in the late winter/early spring, it would not be surprising for us to fall behind for a bit,