Americans should expect to pay more to stay warm this winter. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) projects that home heating costs will rise 8.7% across all fuel types, to an average of about $1,030 per household, according to its September 14 forecast. NEADA notes that is more than 2.5 times the rate of inflation.

Families who heat with oil will be hit much harder. NEADA projects they will pay 31.3% more, with average seasonal bills of about $2,300, Quartz reported.

Why: two wars and one oil market

• The Iran war is the main driver. Fighting around the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. oil blockade of Iran and attacks on Gulf energy sites have kept crude near $100 a barrel. Heating oil is refined from crude, so it moves first and furthest.
• Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, keeps pressure on global energy. Europe’s turn away from Russian gas since 2022 has tightened world natural-gas markets and pulled more U.S. gas overseas as LNG.
• Everything else costs more too. With electricity, food and rent already up, higher heating bills land on budgets that are already stretched.

Average heating bill: about $1,030, up 8.7%. Heating-oil homes: about $2,300, up 31%. (NEADA)

Who gets hit hardest

New England and the rest of the Northeast rely on heating oil far more than the rest of the country, so Boston-area households, landlords and small businesses will feel this first. Older homes, renters in oil-heated buildings, seniors on fixed incomes and restaurants and shops with high heating loads are most exposed.

What to do now, before the cold

1. Lock in or pre-buy heating oil or propane if your dealer offers a fixed-price or budget plan. Compare at least two dealers.
2. Get a tune-up. A clean, serviced furnace or boiler burns less fuel.
3. Seal the leaks: weatherstrip doors and windows, and insulate the attic if you can. Ask your utility about free or discounted energy audits.
4. Apply for help early. LIHEAP, the federal home-energy assistance program, and state fuel-assistance programs open in the fall and funds can run out. In Massachusetts, apply through your local community action agency.
5. Call your utility before you fall behind. Payment plans and winter shutoff protections are easier to set up early.

For business owners

Budget for higher heating and energy costs in Q4 and Q1, check whether your leases pass heating costs through, and watch oil: our markets briefing tracks what the Iran talks could do to prices.

Wall Street is trading the headlines. On Tuesday, September 22, the Nasdaq Composite posted its second straight record close as oil prices eased, while the Dow finished lower and bank stocks slid, according to Quartz and Yahoo Finance. The S&P 500 was roughly flat.

Under the surface, the moves have been large and fast, and they are driven by geopolitics more than earnings.

BOSTON — Two very different Massachusetts companies filed to go public this year, and together they’re a useful crash course in how the public-markets side of business actually works — the paperwork, the terminology, and the lawyers behind both.

Two real IPOs, two different stories

Hometown Financial Group, the Easthampton-based parent of several Massachusetts community banks, filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC on September 10, 2026, seeking to raise between roughly $510 million and $690 million — with room to grow to nearly $794 million — in an offering priced at $10.00 per share under the ticker HFG on Nasdaq. The offering is tied to a mutual-to-stock conversion: Hometown Financial Group, MHC will cease to exist as a mutual entity, replaced by a newly incorporated public holding company. The proceeds are earmarked for a specific purpose — financing the company’s $160 million acquisition of Bedford, New Hampshire-based Primary Bank, repaying a $135 million senior note coming due in 2027, and covering an Employee Stock Ownership Plan obligation.

A few miles away, Seaport Therapeutics, a Boston-based biotech developing antidepressant and anti-anxiety treatments, filed its own registration with the SEC for a $212.4 million IPO, offering 11.8 million shares in a $16–$18 range that would value the company near $912 million at the top end. Founded in 2024 and roughly half-owned by PureTech Health, Seaport is led by CEO Daphne Zohar, who previously co-founded Karuna Therapeutics — the company Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired for $14 billion in 2024. Seaport expects Phase 2 depression-treatment trial results in the first half of 2027.

Different industries, different sizes, same regulatory road: an S-1 filed with the SEC, a roadshow, and a market that will ultimately decide the price.

What a “Red Herring” actually is

The M&A and IPO world is full of jargon that sounds more mysterious than it is. Boston Made’s own brand-advisory arm puts it plainly on its Mergers & Acquisitions page: “A ‘Red Herring’ is the industry term for a preliminary prospectus — a red-flagged draft disclosure document, named for the red-ink notice on its cover, used ahead of a formal public offering to describe a company’s business, financials, and risks before pricing is finalized.” Both Hometown Financial Group’s and Seaport Therapeutics’ S-1 filings are, at this stage, functioning exactly like that — public, but explicitly preliminary, with final pricing still to come.

Where attorneys and privilege fit in

Every serious M&A process or public offering runs on legal infrastructure most outside observers never see. Company counsel drafts and negotiates the disclosure documents. Attorney-client privilege protects the internal deliberations — valuation debates, risk disclosures, negotiating strategy — that happen before anything becomes public. Due diligence generates enormous volumes of documentation: cap tables, material contracts, litigation history, IP assignments, regulatory filings — all of it reviewed by counsel on both sides before terms are finalized. None of that is unique to Hometown Financial Group or Seaport Therapeutics; it’s simply how public offerings and acquisitions get done, at every scale.

Boston Made’s own M&A process, outlined on the page linked above, mirrors that structure: a submission, an automatic NDA, a documentation request that explicitly includes preliminary Red Herring materials where relevant, a structuring-and-terms phase conducted “with you and your counsel,” and finally a close-and-integration stage — or, for companies pursuing a public listing rather than an acquisition, a hand-off to Bosstox.com. As that page notes plainly: it describes a process, not legal, financial, or investment advice.

Why it’s worth understanding

Boston’s public-markets activity this year — from a 100-plus-year-old community bank going public to fund an acquisition, to a four-year-old biotech chasing a $900 million valuation — shows the range of companies working through this exact machinery right now. Understanding the vocabulary doesn’t require a law degree. It just requires someone willing to explain it plainly, which is what this page is for.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. Boston Made, Inc. is not affiliated with Hometown Financial Group or Seaport Therapeutics. Businesses considering a sale, acquisition, or capital raise can learn more about Boston Made’s own process at brands.bostonmade.com/mergers-acquisitions.