UNG not rewarding the patient investors in this natural gas ETF - will the swing lows of July hold?

The natural gas ETF, UNG, has not been rewarding the patient as it tests down again. First we identified the measured-move target as $12, and got a nice movement up from there. After a swing low around $12.25, it moved up again - only to be defeated once more at its 50-day moving average (see daily chart at right). Now it's down around $12.42 intraday. The way this move looks is concerning. Of course it won't absolutely break the swing low levels unless it edges slightly lower - it just isn't pretty.

Readers know that I've never been happy with the buying volumes off the low just under $12, even though the volumes on down days haven't been as heavy (for the most part) as back in July. I'm also not pleased that volume picked up on the down days, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

I marked on a weekly chart some trendlines that we may have to work with, if UNG loses support at the prior July lows ... point being, that the upper downtrending line that I marked, needs to be moved above if UNG is to get going again.

I don't have a fundamental outlook on natural gas - although deflation looks still a serious concern for the economy, there have been ideas that natural gas should do well. And I'm also aware there have been some issues surrounding the UNG as an ETF, itself; I don't have any comment on whether that alone should drive down either natural gas or UNG. I've just got to point out that this is looking concerning from the bullish UNG point of view.

UPDATE - By the way, I checked the Option Pain CBOE (Max-Pain) Calculator from OptionPain.com for UNG, next Friday's opex - the call are about $4.3 million at $13, and the puts are about $9.5 million. Perhaps opex is helping to explain what's going on with UNG now ... maybe it will also help UNG keep from going (much?) under the July lows.