2008 PO.com Oil Price Challenge II (Oct 7)

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3694

Welcome to "Part II" of the 2008 PO.com Oil Price Challenge. I have split this off from the previous thread to avoid confusion.

To reiterate, the rules are as follows:

1. Participants are to guess the high, low, and close for the period between July 1 2008 and December 31, 2008. This is a slight change from the earlier rule, so some people may have to revise their predictions if they were based on the full year (sorry for any confusion). Participants may add a prediction for max, min and close in Euros as well.

2. Predictions will become official on July 1. Some of us might wait until right before July 1 to guess, to know at least one data point.

3. Standings will be posted periodically based on difference between the prediction and reality, based on the EIA front month futures contract spreadsheet linked in the above thread.

4. At the end of the year, we will pick a winner for closest to the high, low, close and overall accuracy, using the sum of the absolute values of the differences between the predictions and reality for the overall. Note: If you have not followed the instructions carefully, and have left off part of your guess, I will not be able to put you in the "overall" standings, however, you will still qualify for the individual categories if you want.

5. Entries may be revised at any time before July 1.

6. There is no charge to enter, however, once again, side bets are encouraged.

7. Feel free to put your rationale or calculations for any predictions, if you use any.

8. As in the previous thread, the winners in each category, as well as the overall winner, will receive the love, respect and admiration of the PO.com board, which, as we know, is priceless. Nothing bad will happen if you lose.

9. Other rules may be added as we go. I am a laid back judge, so any suggestions, feel free to add.

10. If anyone wants, feel free to post predictions from various talking heads, analysts, news organizations, etc. for the rest of the year, and we will record them too.

Here are the forecasts I have recorded from the other thread thus far. Please review your forecast, and make any corrections before July 1. Remember that the contest is for the period between July 1 and December 31, so take that into consideration. I am not a particularly accurate typist, so this may be an important issue.

Here are the forecasts I have recorded so far.

arretium

Jul 1 - End of Year
HIGH LOW CLOSE
193 93 143

mididoctors

low 125
high 200
close 180

I,m sticking (more or less) with my original guess
I make a prediction I stick with it until the bitter end.. none of this change your mind namby pandyness

Boris
London

thylacine · Heavy Crude Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 114

High 152
low 112
close 148

spin that wheel!

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3694

3aidlillahi

Low - $110
High - $175
Close - $158

Por favor.
_________________
Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind.

mididoctors

grampybone · Tar Sands Joined: May 31, 2008 Posts: 82

High: $165

Low: $122.50

close: $143

drgoodword

So many factors at play here...

Will the stock market finally capitulate to reality and crash this year?

Will the recessionary forces from the crash lower the price of oil, or will a crashed equities market drive even more money into commodities?

What about the ever-falling U.S. dollar?

What about the EIA's revised report scheduled for November?

Will a major oil producing country hit an undeniable depletion drop this year?

Well, here's my guesstimates:

High: $131.00

Low: $111.00

Close: $127.00

idomar

High: $220

Low: $130

Close: $205

Reasons:

Hurricanes, Mexico, the Europe situation, rhetoric towards Iran, Russia, China, India, the ME.........well you get the drift

Once June is out of the way, i think that a low of $130 may even be a little low, it is going to be an interesting 6 months.

Denny

High - $141
Low - $103
Close - $113

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3694

Smudger

anagami

no avarage price? ...and how is the avarage calculated if the price can be tracked for changes every few seconds to every hour? what is the range of time used to calculate the avarage? maybe avaraging the close price for each day?

here are my changed predictions for the second half of this year:

High 160
Low 88 112
Close ~~136~~ 144
Avg ~~120~~ 136
_________________
anagami.net

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3694

Like before, you can put an average if you want. Perhaps you will get extra love and admiration if you get that right too.

The official dataset will be that spreadsheet on the EIA website, which gives the front month futures closing price. These prices are updated roughly every week, and easy to calculate the average for a truncated data set, and also for the entire year, when the year finishes. For "closing price" for the weekly standings or whatever, I just use the latest price. Kind of arbitrary, as we have discussed, but that's okay.

So, the standings will be updated either when the dataset is updated, or whenever I get around to it, as the case may be.

This is a much more interesting contest than it was a week ago, what with the current little correction going on. Will crude oil get higher in the second half of the year? What about hurricanes? What if OPEC cuts back their extra production?

So many questions.

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3694