Natural Gas Price Increases a Natural Result?

There’s been a good deal of attention on energy billionaire T. Boone Picken’s natural gas legislation, which was introduced in the house last week with 154 co-sponsors. The general buzz is indicating a fair amount of popular support for the bill, which would amend IRS code to promote investment in natural gas and in producing these vehicles, among other incentives. According to Pickens in an interview with Rhonda Schaffler of Reuters, the big advantage of the bill will be shifting the fuel consumption of 8,000 trucks on the road from diesel to natural gas, which Pickens claims will cut our reliance on OPEC in half.

Now, theoretically, the introduction of such a bill could cause some major changes for both natural gas and crude futures. Investors should be running to invest in the future of transportation fuel, driving the price of natural gas up. They would be abandoning their long crude positions, looking to get out before America no longer used oil anymore.

Theoretically.

Crude versus Natural Gas year to date

And then we look at the data. Year to date, Crude is up 13.76%, and Natural Gas is down 6.78%. Perhaps the further out contracts are changing, you say. Nope. The furthest out contract being traded for Natural Gas is June 2021, and its most recent settlement was up a measly .12% since the beginning of this month. The furthest out contract being traded for Crude is December 2019, and its most recent settlement had it down a total of 5.4%. These aren’t exactly big market shake ups, and could have just as much to do with a variety of other factors as they do the Pickens proposal. But then again… this legislation has been introduced in different forms several times over the past couple of decades, and there hasn’t been a vote on this version yet. It is still possible that those swings will occur, just as soon as investors see the Pickens proposal signed into law.

For now, looks like Natural Gas will remain a type of pseudo savings account for many traders, where they park extra cash knowing there isn’t too much downside (having lost 85% of its value since 2001), and a whole lot of potential upside should we finally get serious in this country about confronting our addiction to oil.

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Those investors who are qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7 and interested in investing in a program exempt from having to provide a disclosure document and considered by the regulations to be sophisticated enough to understand the risks and be able to interpret the accuracy and completeness of any performance information on their own.

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See the full terms of use and risk disclaimer here.

Disclaimer
The performance data displayed herein is compiled from various sources, including BarclayHedge, and reports directly from the advisors. These performance figures should not be relied on independent of the individual advisor's disclosure document, which has important information regarding the method of calculation used, whether or not the performance includes proprietary results, and other important footnotes on the advisor's track record.

Benchmark index performance is for the constituents of that index only, and does not represent the entire universe of possible investments within that asset class. And further, that there can be limitations and biases to indices such as survivorship, self reporting, and instant history.

Managed futures accounts can subject to substantial charges for management and advisory fees. The numbers within this website include all such fees, but it may be necessary for those accounts that are subject to these charges to make substantial trading profits in the future to avoid depletion or exhaustion of their assets.

Investors interested in investing with a managed futures program (excepting those programs which are offered exclusively to qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7) will be required to receive and sign off on a disclosure document in compliance with certain CFT rules The disclosure documents contains a complete description of the principal risk factors and each fee to be charged to your account by the CTA, as well as the composite performance of accounts under the CTA's management over at least the most recent five years. Investor interested in investing in any of the programs on this website are urged to carefully read these disclosure documents, including, but not limited to the performance information, before investing in any such programs.

Those investors who are qualified eligible persons as that term is defined by CFTC regulation 4.7 and interested in investing in a program exempt from having to provide a disclosure document and considered by the regulations to be sophisticated enough to understand the risks and be able to interpret the accuracy and completeness of any performance information on their own.

RCM receives a portion of the commodity brokerage commissions you pay in connection with your futures trading and/or a portion of the interest income (if any) earned on an account's assets. The listed manager may also pay RCM a portion of the fees they receive from accounts introduced to them by RCM.

See the full terms of use and risk disclaimer here.

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