What Henry Hub natural gas futures are
Henry Hub natural gas futures are the benchmark derivatives contract for US natural gas, traded under the symbol NG on the NYMEX exchange that forms part of CME Group, and each contract represents 10,000 million British thermal units of gas deliverable at the Henry Hub pricing point. The contract is the reference price the global gas market quotes against, and its front-month print is the number news outlets mean when they say "the natural gas price" (CME Group).
I start with the contract rather than the chart because the contract defines the risk. A Henry Hub future is a leveraged agreement to take or make delivery of a fixed quantity of gas at a fixed date, settled against the hub's spot price, and the size of that quantity is what makes the position volatile.
The contract exists alongside a spot market for immediate physical gas, and the two are linked but distinct. The futures price is what the market expects gas to be worth at a future date, while the spot price is what it costs today, and the spread between them carries its own information about storage, demand and the cost of carry.
The contract specifications
The size and tick value of the NG contract are fixed by the exchange, and knowing them by heart is the first job of anyone trading the market. Each contract covers 10,000 MMBtu of natural gas, the minimum price increment is 0.001 dollars per MMBtu, and that tick is worth 10 dollars per contract (CME Group).
| Specification | NG (Henry Hub) futures |
|---|---|
| Contract size | 10,000 MMBtu of natural gas |
| Tick size | 0.001 dollars per MMBtu |
| Tick value | 10 dollars per contract per tick |
| A 0.01 dollar move | 100 dollars per contract |
| A 0.10 dollar move | 1,000 dollars per contract |
| Exchange | NYMEX, part of CME Group |
I keep those multipliers visible because they explain the volatility. A 0.10 dollar swing in the gas price, which is an ordinary day around a storage report, moves a single contract by 1,000 dollars, and most traders hold more than one (CME Group).
Why Henry Hub is the benchmark
Henry Hub earned its benchmark status through geography rather than marketing. It is a pipeline interconnect near Erath, Louisiana, that links dozens of interstate and intrastate pipelines, which lets gas flow between the producing regions of the Gulf and the consuming regions of the Midwest and East (US Energy Information Administration).
That physical connectivity makes the hub's price a reliable proxy for the broader US market, and the EIA publishes the Henry Hub spot price as its reference series for natural gas. I treat the hub as the market's thermometer because the official data treats it that way, not because any single trader decided it was important.
The benchmark role is also why so many other gas contracts settle against it. Basis pricing at other hubs is quoted as a discount or premium to Henry Hub, so when the front-month NG contract moves, the rest of the physical market reprices with it (US Energy Information Administration).
What drives Henry Hub futures prices
Four forces do most of the work on the NG contract, and I watch all four before I look at a chart. Weather sets heating and cooling demand, LNG exports pull domestic supply onto the global market, storage levels show whether the system is full or lean, and production sets how much gas is coming out of the ground.
Weather is the loudest driver in winter and summer. A cold snap raises heating demand and can spike the price in days, while a heatwave raises cooling demand as gas-fired power plants run hard, and traders track heating degree days as a proxy for the winter burn (US Energy Information Administration).
LNG exports have reshaped the market over the last decade. When global gas prices run far above US levels, exporters pull domestic supply onto ships, which tightens the home market and lifts Henry Hub, so the export channel now links the US price to events in Europe and Asia that once would not have moved it.
The EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report
The single biggest scheduled event for the NG contract is the EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report, released every Thursday at 10:30 Eastern, and it routinely moves the front month by several percent in minutes. The report shows how much gas was injected into or withdrawn from storage the prior week, which tells the market whether the system is filling or draining faster than expected (US Energy Information Administration).
A larger-than-expected injection signals ample supply and tends to pressure the price, while a larger withdrawal signals tightness and tends to lift it, and the surprise matters more than the absolute number. I treat Thursday morning as the highest-volatility window of the week, and many traders stand aside through the print rather than guess it.
The mechanics of storage matter beyond the headline. The storage report tracks the injection season from April through October, when gas is banked for winter, and the withdrawal season from November through March, when it is burned, so the same weekly number means different things in different seasons.
Seasonality and the winter spike
Natural gas has a strong seasonal cycle, and the NG contract reflects it. Prices tend to find pressure during the shoulder months of spring and autumn when demand is mild, and they tend to find support during winter heating demand and summer cooling demand, with the storage cycle underneath both (US Energy Information Administration).
The winter of 2022 showed how violently that cycle can spike. Severe cold across much of the country in January 2022 pushed Henry Hub spot prices to around 8.15 dollars per MMBtu on January 22, a sharp move driven by heating demand, and the year closed with the average hub price at a 14-year high (US Energy Information Administration; Natural Gas Intelligence).
I use that episode as a risk reference rather than a prediction. The same conditions, cold weather meeting a storage deficit, can repeat in any winter, and the leverage of the contract means the move from such a setup is measured in thousands of dollars per contract, not hundreds.
Spot versus futures, and why the distinction matters
The Henry Hub spot price and the NG futures price are related but answer different questions, and confusing them is a common beginner error. Spot is the price of physical gas for immediate delivery today, while the futures price is the market's expectation of the spot price at a future month, and the gap between them reflects storage costs, interest and seasonal expectations.
A market in contango, where later months price higher than near months, suggests ample storage and loose supply. A market in backwardation, where near months price higher, suggests tight supply now, and reading that curve is a core skill the futures-only trader has to build.
I separate the two because they trade on different information. Spot reacts to today's physical flows, while futures react to expectations of future storage and weather, and a setup that looks obvious on the spot chart can look completely different on the forward curve.
A worked example of what a move is worth
The leverage of the NG contract is clearest in a worked example, so I walk through one before the trading section. Say a trader goes long one Henry Hub contract at a 3.00 dollar entry and the front month rises to 3.20 dollars, a 0.20 dollar move in the underlying.
That 0.20 dollar move is 200 ticks, and at 10 dollars per tick the open profit is 2,000 dollars on a single contract, which is exactly why the contract attracts so much speculative flow (CME Group).
The mirror image is the risk. The same 0.20 dollar move against the position is a 2,000 dollar loss per contract, and a gap or a storage surprise can cover that distance inside a session, which is why the position size has to reflect the stop distance and never the trader's appetite.
How traders approach the NG contract
Trading Henry Hub futures well means combining the fundamental read with technical timing, and I use both rather than choosing between them. The fundamental side tracks weather, LNG, storage and production, while the technical side times entries and exits off the chart, and neither half works reliably without the other.
For technical timing, I lean on three tools. The 14-day Average True Range, or ATR, sizes stops to recent volatility by taking the true range of each of the last 14 days, averaging it, and setting the stop a multiple of that average beyond the entry, which keeps the stop wide enough to survive noise without being arbitrary.
I pair ATR-based stops with a trend filter like a moving average and a momentum read like MACD or RSI, because a futures contract that trends hard in one direction will punish anyone fighting it, and the indicators exist to keep me on the side of the move rather than to predict it.
Risk management for a leveraged contract
Risk management is the whole game on the NG contract, and I treat it as non-negotiable. A 0.10 dollar move equals 1,000 dollars per contract, and the contract can travel that far in a single session around a storage print or a cold snap, so a naked position sized for comfort on a quiet day can become an emergency on a volatile one (CME Group).
The disciplined approach is to size the position off the distance to the stop, not off the account balance alone. I decide where I am wrong, measure the distance in ticks, multiply by 10 dollars, and risk a fixed fraction of the account, which is exactly what a position size calculator is built to do.
For traders who want to run that leveraged exposure with firm capital rather than their own margin, futures proprietary trading firms fund accounts to trade contracts like NG after an evaluation, which is one route to a meaningful position size without putting up the full margin yourself.
For live execution and accountability alongside the research, the futures trading rooms on Whop include desks that trade energy contracts in real time, and watching experienced operators size risk under a live storage print is one of the fastest ways to close the gap between knowing the method and running it under pressure.