When is the last time that crude oil closed as high as $81.64 per barrel? You’d have to look back to 2008. At that time, crude was on its way down. This time, commodities like oil are trending higher! There are plenty of exchange traded investments for rising crude oil prices. Perhaps the most popular is United States Oil (USO), an ETF that endeavors to capture the the spot price of West Texas Intermediate Light Sweet Crude.
It should be noted, however, that USO has struggled immensely at tracking its intended index due to contango and backwardation. And the iPath Crude Oil ETN (OIL) hasn’t fared a whole heck of a lot better. Other folks hope to benefit from the corporations that explore for, produce and sell the commodity. Yet share prices of big energy companies have been hit from everything from oil drilling moratoriums to taxation and regulatory uncertainty.
ETFs like SPDR Select Energy (XLE) and Oil Services HOLDRs (OIH) have been under-performers regardless of reasonable share price valuation. So what’s an oil investor to do? Can you march to the beat of the oil drum....and actually achieve over sized returns? Yes you can. However, you might want to look in a slightly different direction.....Read the entire article.
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