Joe wrote:
On Nov 19, 3:27 pm, RobertPatrick wrote:
frank1492 wrote
:

I live in Massachusetts and my natural gas is
supplied by Nstar. I have been given the option to lock in
my gas price for this heating season at $1.2624 per therm.
It is also noted that, as of Nov.6, the gas supply charge
"for the winter" is $1.2424.
Is this a good idea do you think? I will need to guess
whether gas prices will go up in the NE. I do know that
the NE is expected to be colder than normal this year.
Your ideas would be much appreciated!
Thank you.
Frank

I always select the fixed option. Looks like you call that locking
in.

I have oil and could have locked in last winter at $2.35/gallon. I
didn't and ended up paying an average of $3.10/gallon - got burned.
This year when it came time to lock in oil was skyrocketing. I had an
offer to lock in at $4.70. I didn't. Now it's back down to $2.35/
gallon, roughly half of what I could have locked in for. I have
neighbors who are beside themselves for locking in and have to pay
$1000 to get out of their contract - which might actually be worth it
now. It's pretty horrible that speculators are allowed to manipulate
the commodity markets the way they do. I think that the only people
who should be allowed to buy commodities are the people who can
actually take ownership of what they buy.

If YOU had an opportunity to buy a contract, YOU are a "speculator"
irrespective of whether you participated.

Your neighbors lost $1000. But someone else made $1000 profit.

It averages out.