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(Bloomberg) — Months of mild weather lulled US and European gas traders into believing winter would bring more of the same — not the brutal freeze gripping much of America.

Their bad bet is now reverberating around the world.

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Futures prices for natural gas — fuel for home furnaces and power plants alike — jumped 70% in the US over a wild week of trading, as forecasts for deep cold grew steadily worse. The previous week, prices rose 30% in Europe, where a cold snap combined with geopolitical jitters to drive up the market. Before the sudden surge, many traders on both sides of the Atlantic had been betting prices would fall instead.

Nor is it certain that the worst of the run-up is over.

Temperatures in gas-producing parts of the US could drop low enough in coming days to freeze pipelines — potentially choking off supplies just as demand for the fuel soars. While the main futures market is closed over the weekend, some spot trading will continue. With that in mind, one trading team planned to spend Saturday and Sunday at a downtown Houston hotel to ensure backup power generation — and a stable internet connection to the Intercontinental Exchange trading platform — should blackouts sweep the region.

“Everyone’s in panic mode right now,” said Paul Phillips, senior strategist for Uplift Energy Strategy, a Denver, Colorado-based gas trading firm. “People were writing off winter last week.”

The price spike — the most abrupt weekly increase on record in the US — illustrates just how integrated the country has become into the global gas market. America’s emergence in recent years as the leading gas exporter means much of the world is now reliant on US supplies, making price volatility at home an international story. Indeed, cold weather in Texas and other gas-producing states has helped drive prices so high that many smaller buyers in Asia may no longer be able to pay, with liquefied natural gas tankers likely sailing to Europe instead.

While winter triggered the spike, it was far from the only cause.

Many gas traders started January expecting prices to drop, based on ample supplies. Then cold weather in Europe started driving up demand, while protests in Iran and US President Donald Trump’s talk of seizing Greenland raised the geopolitical risk to energy markets. Gas prices began to rise, prompting a frantic scramble among European traders to cover their short positions. Their frenzied buying accelerated the rally.

“This was a case of markets overextending in terms of positioning,” said Udayan Bhattacharya, chief trader at Global Risk Management, a Copenhagen company that advises clients on energy price hedging. Combine those positions with some bad weather and political tension, he said, and “you get a violent, short covering situation like we saw the last few days.”

A similar “short squeeze” played out this week in the US, as the weather forecast worsened and threatened gas supplies. Just five years ago, a deep freeze knocked out pipelines and power plants in Texas, triggering days of blackouts and leaving more than 200 people dead. And the fuel has only grown more essential — to both the US and the world — since then.

Gas has displaced coal as the main fuel of US power plants over the past decade, due both to its cheap cost and low pollution. At the same time, the country has become the world’s leading liquefied natural gas exporter, as fracking unlocked massive shale reserves. US LNG production has more than doubled since 2021, with eight export plants operating along the Gulf Coast and two on the East Coast. In early January, US LNG plants processed a record amount of domestic gas, equivalent to about 18% of the country’s total gas production.

And yet, even as both supply and demand grew, the US built little new storage for the fuel, said Christopher Kalnin, CEO of BKV Corp., the largest gas producer in Texas’ Barnett Shale. That combination of tight storage and strong demand can trigger dramatic price spikes, he said.

“It’s like a heavier and heavier person jumping on a trampoline,” Kalnin said. “You’re going to get more and more volatility.”

One senior trader at a major US gas producer said that while the rally’s first day was exciting — higher prices mean more money for companies that produce and ship the fuel — the thrill turned to apprehension as prices continued their relentless climb. Such high levels, with futures finishing the week at $5.275 per million BTU, can indicate extreme conditions that might prevent a seller from transporting gas to buyers. If buyers can’t receive the fuel, those massively profitable gas sales can be made worthless.

To top it all off, trading algorithms were betting on price declines in the US going into the week, according to data from Bridgeton Research Group. Only when gas futures started smashing through key price thresholds did those bot traders start buying back contracts at a loss, moving from 100% short at the start of the week to 45% net short on Thursday. Similarly, hedge funds were near their most bearish gas position in over a year, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

“The market had given up on winter until this week,” said Darrell Fletcher, managing director of commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets. “Then it all changed very quickly.”

A further rally now depends on how long the US freeze will last — and how it impacts the country’s exports. Shipments have fallen during previous winter storms, most notably in February 2021. But if the impact is limited to several cargoes this time around, European prices could retreat soon, according to some traders.

Although the market for LNG is global, not every country will feel the effects of the price spike equally.

China and Japan, the world’s two largest LNG buyers, were hit by frigid weather over the last few weeks. But both have strong inventories, shipments purchased under long-term contracts and alternative fuel choices, according to traders in Singapore. That could free up some spare LNG shipments to flow to Europe, restraining prices there.

But smaller players will be squeezed. Officials from Thailand’s state-owned gas importer, PTT PCL, decided to scrap a planned LNG purchase after tender offers came in far higher than expected, one of the traders said. Instead, they’re hoping prices fall by March, when Europe’s winter ends.

–With assistance from Elena Mazneva, Alberto Brambilla, Devika Krishna Kumar, Stephen Stapczynski and Sing Yee Ong.

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The phase 3 ASCENT-04/KEYNOTE-D19 trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in January 2026, provides compelling evidence that combining the Trop-2–directed antibody–drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab significantly improves clinical outcomes in patients with previously untreated, PD-L1–positive, locally advanced unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This study represents a pivotal step forward in first-line treatment for one of the most aggressive and therapeutically challenging breast cancer subtypes.

ASCENT-04

Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Symptoms ,Causes, Types, Diagnosis and​ Treatment

Clinical Context: The Unmet Need in First-Line TNBC

Triple-negative breast cancer is characterized by the absence of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 expression and is associated with early relapse, visceral metastases, and poor long-term survival. Although immune checkpoint inhibition combined with chemotherapy has become the standard first-line approach for PD-L1–positive metastatic TNBC, outcomes remain suboptimal, and nearly half of patients do not proceed beyond first-line therapy. Improving the depth and durability of response early in the disease course remains a major clinical priority.

Trial Design and Treatment Strategy

ASCENT-04/KEYNOTE-D19 was a randomized, open-label, international phase 3 trial conducted across 186 sites in 28 countries. A total of 443 patients with previously untreated advanced TNBC and PD-L1–positive tumors (combined positive score ≥10) were randomly assigned to receive either sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab or investigator’s choice chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab.

Sacituzumab govitecan was administered at 10 mg/kg on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle, combined with pembrolizumab 200 mg every 3 weeks. The control arm consisted of standard chemotherapy regimens (taxane-based or gemcitabine–carboplatin) plus pembrolizumab. The primary end point was progression-free survival assessed by blinded independent central review.

Efficacy: Meaningful Improvement in Progression-Free Survival

The trial met its primary end point, demonstrating a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival with sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab. Median progression-free survival was 11.2 months in the experimental arm compared with 7.8 months in the chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab arm, corresponding to a 35% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death.

This near-one-year median progression-free survival compares favorably with outcomes from prior pivotal trials of chemotherapy–immunotherapy combinations in this setting, where median progression-free survival has generally ranged between 7 and 10 months. Importantly, the progression-free survival benefit was consistent across predefined subgroups, including patients with aggressive disease features such as liver metastases and early relapse after curative-intent therapy.

Response Depth and Durability

Objective response rates were numerically higher with sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab (60%) than with chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab (53%). More notably, responses were substantially more durable. Among patients achieving a confirmed response, the median duration of response was 16.5 months in the sacituzumab-based arm, compared with 9.2 months in the chemotherapy arm.

These findings suggest that antibody–drug conjugate–based strategies may provide more sustained tumor control than conventional chemotherapy, even when initial response rates are similar. The durability of response is particularly relevant in metastatic TNBC, where early loss of disease control often limits long-term benefit.

Overall Survival

At the time of the primary analysis, overall survival data were immature, with approximately one quarter of patients having died. Median overall survival had not yet been reached in either treatment arm. Interpretation of future overall survival outcomes will need to account for the high rate of crossover to sacituzumab govitecan among patients initially assigned to chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab.

Safety and Treatment Tolerability

The safety profile of sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab was consistent with the known toxicities of each agent. Grade 3 or higher adverse events occurred at similar frequencies in both arms. However, treatment discontinuation due to adverse events was substantially lower in the sacituzumab-based arm (12%) compared with the chemotherapy arm (31%).

The most common adverse events with sacituzumab govitecan plus pembrolizumab included diarrhea, nausea, and neutropenia, while chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab was more frequently associated with anemia and thrombocytopenia. Importantly, immune-mediated adverse events were less frequent in the sacituzumab-based combination. These findings suggest that improved tolerability and lower discontinuation rates may allow patients to remain on effective therapy longer, potentially contributing to improved clinical benefit.

Biological and Therapeutic Implications

Sacituzumab govitecan delivers the topoisomerase I inhibitor SN-38 directly to Trop-2–expressing tumor cells through a hydrolyzable linker, enabling high intratumoral drug exposure. While sacituzumab govitecan is not considered intrinsically immunomodulatory, emerging evidence suggests that antibody–drug conjugates may enhance antitumor immune responses when combined with checkpoint inhibition, providing a biologic rationale for this combination.

The results of ASCENT-04/KEYNOTE-D19 support the concept of moving effective antibody–drug conjugates earlier in the treatment paradigm, not merely as salvage therapy but as foundational components of first-line treatment.

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