WHY WAGER ON GAS

摘要

While the price of a barrel of oil has doubled since early March, to about $68, natural gas prices are languishing at about $4 per million BTUs. In markets where traders make bets based on those standard measures of barrels and BTUs, the 18-to-1 price ratio for oil is about double the typical ratio of 8 or 9 to 1. That has some speculators betting natural gas prices will spike.rnI hey're piling mto the simplest torm ot a pure play on gas prices, the U.S. Natural Gas Exchange-Traded Fund. Assets in the fund, which invests mainly in gas futures contracts, have gone from less than $700 million in February to more than $4 billion in June. The bet hasn't paid off yet-the fund is down 38% in 2009, owing to weak natural gas prices as well as a quirk in the futures market that cuts into its return every month when it rolls over contracts.