Don't foget that energies like crude oil, heating oil, natural gas, and unleaded gasoline are traded on futures exchanges around the globe.
Commodity futures have attracted a lot of hot money over the last few years. Many reasons, including speculators (correctly) anticipating sharply rising demand in China and India, as well as a desire to diversify investments beyond dollar-denominated paper assets like stocks and bonds, as the U.S. dollar increasingly loses value and purchasing power.
If you have $8,100, you can control a position of 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline (regular, I think).
Each full penny fluctation per gallon translates to a $420 increase or decline.
Talk about leverage!
Trading futures is more fun than poker.
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