The financialization of the energy market has capacitated energy commodities to affect economic activities unfathomably. Despite the availability of rich literature investigating crude oil and developing its strong ties with economic and financial stability and climate change, little attention has been paid to natural gas (NG or LNG) and its potential to affect economies. Natural gas is not merely an alternative fossil fuel and a substitute for crude oil but it also presents huge advantages in terms of cost and low carbon emission. This study contributes to the literature and provides meaningful evidence on how changes in natural gas futures prices affect the equity returns in G-5 economies using the data covering almost two decades. Our results present a few exciting insights. First, we find that oil and gas prices are weakly correlated and do not reflect the dependence of gas on oil as reported in previous studies. Second, we find that although gas price changes negatively affect equity market returns in the short run, it subsides substantially in the long run. Holistically, our findings identify the hedging potential that natural gas provides to cope with the volatility in crude oil prices. We also assert that substituting oil with natural gas may improve the sustainability and stability of financial markets in G-5 economies.

能源市场的金融化使能源商品能够对经济活动产生不可估量的影响。尽管有丰富的文献研究原油并发展其与经济和金融稳定以及气候变化的紧密联系，但很少有人关注天然气（NG 或 LNG）及其影响经济的潜力。天然气不仅是替代化石燃料和原油的替代品，而且在成本和低碳排放方面具有巨大优势。本研究为文献做出了贡献，并利用涵盖近 20 年的数据为天然气期货价格变化如何影响 G-5 经济体的股票回报提供了有意义的证据。我们的结果提出了一些令人兴奋的见解。首先，我们发现石油和天然气价格的相关性较弱，并不像之前的研究报告的那样反映天然气对石油的依赖性。其次，我们发现尽管天然气价格变化在短期内会对股市回报产生负面影响，但在长期内会大幅下降。从整体上讲，我们的研究结果确定了天然气为应对原油价格波动提供的对冲潜力。我们还断言，用天然气替代石油可能会提高 G-5 经济体金融市场的可持续性和稳定性。