Natural Gas (NG) delivery months at a glance — every contract's record over its tenure as the lead month.
Futures Seasonality · Contract-Month Study
Every contract 2010–2026, measured over its tenure as the lead contract · Updated for 2026
If the contract view earns its keep anywhere, it is here. The January natural gas contract, the single delivery month everyone associates with peak winter demand, has been the worst contract in the entire energy complex while it leads: down 12 of 16 times, averaging a 9.6% loss. They call this market the widow-maker, and this is the contract doing most of the widow-making.
Most seasonality tables slice the calendar. This one slices the contracts. Each delivery month below is measured over its time as the lead contract: from the open of the day it takes over the front of the board to the close of the day it hands off the lead. No roll gaps, no splicing, one contract per observation. An NG contract leads for roughly a month, ending a few sessions before its expiration when volume hands off to the next month, the same roll convention used across all Traders Brief research.
Natural Gas (NG) — Average Change by Contract Month
Average change while each contract leads the board. Hover any bar for the detail.
Each row is a delivery month: how many of its 16 contracts since 2010 rose while leading, the average change over the tenure, and the average high-to-low range. “Typically leads” is the median window that contract runs the board.
| Contract | Typically leads | Up / Down | Win rate | Avg change | Avg range |
|---|
Table view doubles as the accessible read of the chart above.
The January contract is the widow-maker’s widow-maker. Leading from roughly Thanksgiving to just before Christmas, the F contract has fallen in 12 of its 16 tenures with an average loss of 9.6%, the worst month-and-magnitude combination of any contract in any market we track. By the time the peak-winter delivery takes the board, every forecast has been traded for weeks, and its tenure is where the winter premium has gone to die. The March (H) and November (X) contracts, the other two winter-premium carriers, lean the same way at 31% each.
The June contract is the clean bright spot. Leading from late April to late May, the M contract has risen in 11 of 16 tenures (69%) with an average gain of 6.2%, as injection-season reality and summer cooling demand get priced into the board. It is the only NG contract that pairs a strong win rate with a strong average, and it sits exactly where intuition least expects it.
Every tenure is a ride. The average NG contract travels 17 to 30% high-to-low in its single month of leading, with the February contract’s 30% range the widest of all. Even the good contracts swing enough to shake out a poorly sized position long before the tendency pays. In this market more than any other, the count tells you the lean and the range tells you the stakes.
A contract’s record tells you how its month has treated the lead position historically. It doesn’t tell you where the current lead contract sits today, whether this cycle is tracking the record or fighting it, or the levels that matter into the next session. That is what The Traders Brief does every morning, across energy, metals, and the indexes.
See today’s read →Which natural gas contract month is historically strongest?
The June (M) contract, up 11 of 16 tenures (69%) with an average gain of 6.2% while leading from late April to late May.
Which natural gas contract month is weakest?
The January (F) contract, down 12 of 16 tenures (a 25% win rate) with an average loss of 9.6%, the worst contract record in the energy complex despite being the peak-winter delivery month.
Why does the peak-winter contract perform so badly?
By the time the January contract takes the lead in late November, the winter story is already fully priced. Its tenure covers the weeks when reality gets measured against that premium, and most years reality has come up short. The pattern repeats in the other winter-premium contracts, March and November.
Contract tendencies are drawn from 16 years of individual Natural Gas futures contract history (2010–2026), each measured over its own tenure as the lead contract, and describe the past. They are not a forecast and not trading advice. Markets can and do trade against their record in any given year. © 2026 The Traders Brief.