And ... we have another winner!

Today's closing prices for a barrel of oil and an ounce of gold were $95.98 and $834.50, respectively, making VP the winner of the third "Guess the Price of Oil and Gold" contest by a narrow margin over uppercase CP and Eric.

The first contest concluded at the end of 2006 with prices of $61.05 and $636.00 and, six months ago, the second installment resulted in prices of $70.45 and $647.50, so, there's a clear trend here, the most recent six month period being the most exciting by far.
VP wins a one-year subscription to Iacono Research, where the model portfolio ended the year with a 24 percent gain following last year's gain of 25 percent.

A list of the top-ten finishers (out of more than 60 guesses) is shown below. The order of the top ten comes out the same way whether calculated as the square root of the sum of the squares as suggested (Pythagrm % Error) or as a simple sum of the percent differences (Total % Error).
Honorable mention goes to tj & the bear who improved tremendously over his performance in the last contest and, on the low side, tunc k. with guesses of $62 for oil and $610 for gold yielding a total 44 percent error.

The average guesses of $83.30 and $775 resulted in a 15 percent total error.

Thanks to all who participated - there will be a mid-year contest next year which should kick off sometime in late-March or early-April.

Congratulations VP - please send me mail so I can get an account set up for you.

To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research. Or, sign up for a free trial.