[CaptainYooh]

Try another analogy. When you invest in a Canadian bank stock, you look at its price history, dividend history, current balance sheet, risk positions that are publicly known, important ratios, comparison to peer banks and then you make an investment. The price you pay is locked. Stock price can still go up or down, but if you have done your research to make an educated guess and purchased on the price weakness, you'd make money sooner. If you had made a wrong guess and purchased on a strength, you will be losing money for a while until the stock price recovers. This would be investing in accordance with your risk profile.

Conversely, we know nothing definitive about the weather coming up, nothing definitive about gas production plans (because the producers don't know about the future weather either), nothing that supports price movements consistently, nothing that helps you make an educated guess on the PROBABILITY of natural gas prices going up or down that is bigger than 50%. That makes it gambling.

Putin owns pretty much the only gas supply line to Germany and he can really influence heating prices over there by closing the taps. But even he doesn't do it because of the severe consequences he'd face from doing that. How could you control and predict gas prices in North America, where gas supplies are pretty much limitless and weather patterns vary vastly? You can't.