needle

Indeed.

First, go to http://www.nymex.com/lsco_fut_csf.aspx?product=CL to see all the available future contracts. The Dec 2012 contract is the last one. It's actually now up to $64.

 

To trade this, you need a "real" commodities broker (for example http://www.sucden.co.uk), not a spreadbetting company. Sucden will open a private client account from £5,000, and you will need that sort of money anyway as margin.

 

Then you just tell the dealer you want to trade this contract, NYMEX Light Sweet Crude Dec 2012. Trading hours are roughly between 14:00 and 18:00 UK time.

 

There will be an initial margin requirement of about $3500, plus any additional margin, should the price of oil fall by more than $3.50 from here.

 

The contract is worth the price quoted (e.g. $64) multiplied by 1000, so for example $64,000 if the price is $64. You do not have to pay the money now, only the margin needs to be paid and any additional margin, should the price of oil fall.

 

If in Dec 2012, oil is trading at $100, you sell the contract and you will receive the difference to the opening, being $36, i.e $36,000 wil be credited to your account. You can close the contract at any time, you do not have to wait until 2012. However, the contract may behave in a different way to the near month contract, so for example if the near month contract rises to $80 next year, that does not automatically mean that the Dec 2012 contract also rises to that level, because the market might believe that oil will fall back again by 2012. (If this happens, it is called backwardation). The closer we get to expiry, i.e. Dec 2012, the more the price of the contract will gravitate towards the near month price of oil.

 

The risk is that oil may not rise as expected, and fall instead. There are two issues. The first is that oil could eventually end up at say $100 in 2012, but in the meantime falls to, say, $30. That would result in a margin call, you would have to pay in about $30,000 of margin. If the price recovers by 2012, you get this money back. The second issue is that oil might not rise by 2012 at all, ending up, say, at $50. In that case you would close the contract at a loss and be debited with the difference, in this example, $14,000 (which would be taken out of the margin already paid). So you need to have the financial stamina to see the contract through to 2012, and oil will actually have to have gone up by 2012.

 

Any more questions?

Cracking reply BP - really explains things to a noob like me.

Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

The 'margin call' element of the deal puts a whole different gloss on things.

Essentially, I can get 'called' at any point between now and 2012 if the price drops a lot, or the broker just needs some cash.... not a position that I could reasonably take at the moment.

Nonetheless - seems like a cracking offer.....maybe next time.

How do you go about buying into it?

Nice simple explanation please - I have no investment experience - but this?

Please explain how I can take this up.

@No.6

Yes but now, like the internet, its more immediate and has global consequences.

I know how y'all love some sources so here ya go -

"A Chinese intelligence officer is engaged in covertly aiding the ruling Palestinian Hamas terrorist group, according to a Paris-based intelligence newsletter picked up by the Washington Post’s Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough on June 19.

They identify Gong Xiaosheng as a Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) official who has worked out of Ramallah since Nov. 2002, first with Yasser Arafat and latterly helping Hamas.

It was Gong who arrianged for Mahmoud al-Zahar to be invited to Beijing shortly after his appointment as Hamas foreign minister.

The report says Gong is a strategic agent “trained in Division 8 of the ministry and also at the China Institution of Contemporary Relatons (CICIR), an MSS think tank. Its Middle East section is headed by Jin Ruikun, a specialist in Palestine and Jordan, and Chen Shuanqing, a specialist on Israeli-Palestinian relations and Israel’s Likud party.

...intelligence sources add: The Chinese “strategic agent” was so close to Yasser Arafat that he was among the handful of aides and terrorist chiefs confined with him in two rooms of of the residential apartment of the Palestinian leader’s Ramallah headquarters when it was stormed and besieged by Israeli forces in April and May 2002.

After his death, Gong moved over to Hamas. As far back as 2004, the Chinese MSS pegged the Islamist terrorist group as an up-and-coming force heading for Palestinian rule. The American CIA and Israeli Mossad were far slower in assessing Hamas’ rise to power - even on the eve of the Palestinian election in January, 2006. Our Palestinian experts were alone in predicting the Hamas win.

Our sources disclose that the Chinese intelligence officer is very close to Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya, a-Zahar and Muhammed Jaabari, chief of the Hamas armed wing, Ezz e-Din al-Qassam. They habitually consult him for advice. Hamas’s actions and decisions are there not merely influenced by its relations with fellow Palestinian groups, Iran, Syria and other parts of the Muslim world. The Hamas-Gaza, Beijing connection is no less influential. "

Mammad,

If your ideas are true it would be like a revolution.

Do you want to make money?

Are you prepared work on your ideas for the benefit of mankind or do you want to be rich?

I've been telling ya this for months but no one listens to my folksy little opinions.

Dont be naive, people.

This is not a regional flare-up

China is making the moves here.

They are testing our reflexes at every opportunity.

Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela....its all China and its all about securing resources.

Oil is NOT coming down.

Get yer heads around that.

Rather than squinting over charts trying to make a buck off someone elses labour, I'd suggest you look around at how you can function without oil.

No one has made any money on time travel, apart from some science fiction writers

I dont think hes talking about time travel.

Hes talking about ehh...space travel - travelling through space.

Or more precisely bending space to make two points come together so that travel between them becomes shorter.

Imagine an A4 page with a dot at the top and bottom.

To get from one to the other you need to move a couple of inches from one to the other.

If however you fold the page in half, the dots are now beside each other and the journey is much shorter.

This is, in theory, possible.

If this guy has a solution either he would be a scientific sensation and/or he would be picked up by an international govt.

I doubt very much that he would be hunting for investors on a website, especially as hes prepared to work for just about anyone....

Mammad,

What is it exactly you want to develop? A machine? A process?

How much would it cost?

How would an investor make a profit?

Again, I have some experience in this.

Security of transactions is key here (esp on mobile devices).

People love to play but monetising is extremely difficult.

This is a lot more complicated than you think and whoever enters a market first is usually a pathfinder - they die from their wounds - and another pathfinder takes over.....only for them too to bleed money.

I've worked in some of the biggest electronic gaming (gambling) companies in the UK - times are hard. The technology is easily replicated and there is a rush to merge at the moment to hide growing losses.

Also there are few rights - nobody "owns" Poker or Blackjack....

Gambling on gaming is a risky business.

Some controversy about these things, I understand.

There are a lot of ancient celtic sites around and these people could be in for strong local opposition if they are not above board.

In NI everything gets noticed.....

EDIT - actually I may be thinking of another site in Ireland, but the above still stands.

I dunno, I'm not spending 600 quid on a big bulky box (not to mention installation), and I don't reckon many others will too.

You might not have the choice.

And if you wait long enough to find out.....it might cost a hell of a lot more than 600 quid.

Through revolutionary advances in nanotechnology, it may be possible to shrink an equivalent unit to the size of a washing machine and drop the cost to less than $1,000.

Source of this section: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=co...ue&newsid=11392

See.....this is where I start to drift in these debates...

Relying on science fiction is not gonna resolve this in the next 3 centuries.