Teleros

The amount of new oil we're getting out of the ground doesn't offset the amount of old oil fields that are shutting down. There could be a million years worth of oil in the ground, but if we can't get it out faster or cheaply, the price will still rise. As I understand it, a lot of it isn't so much about getting it out of the ground as getting it onto the market (eg Libya). The point though is that I'd place a lot more trust in data, trends and such than economic theory. From my perspective this sounds volatile as hell as it can probably lose your money even faster than a human can. It's a case of garbage in, garbage out - a badly written one will of course perform spectacularly, albeit for all the wrong reasons . But then, how many times have human beings held onto their stocks or w/e for just a little too long, or gone into rogue trading to shore up a position etc? With a computer handling the trades, you can at least set it to behave in a certain fashion if there's a big loss for the day*. * Also, don't bet too much at once. Eg, start with £1000 capital but don't put more than 5% on the market a day. It's slow, but will avoid big losses etc.

Thought I'd register here to say, first, well done on the fundraiser - glad it's gone so well . I'd be careful here - don't forget the Simon-Ehrlich Wager when it comes to things like the oil price. All this fracking (to say nothing of the potential of Libyan/Iraqi/Iranian oil) will act to push the price down. Obviously you can't predict what future oil shocks etc there will be (also, what'll Iranian oil exports be like in 2 years? Who knows), but Malthusian ideas have always ended up wrong since... well certainly the 2nd Century AD, when Tertullian (a Carthaginian) was whining about the inability of the world to support a colossal ~190M people . One thing I'd definitely look into, regardless of what you actually end up speculating in, is automated trading (of which I've had some experience for FOREX markets). If you or someone you know can write a program to buy/sell stocks / currencies / whatever, then go for that instead of relying on a human being to make the call. Software like MetaTrader can be used to test & monitor it - so design the trading program, test it on MT4 or MT5 using historical data, and if it does well using lots of historical data & realistic conditions (ie, don't forget brokers' fees, taxes etc!), try using it for real.