Oil and Gold Contest - entries close in one week!

Just one week remains before entries close for the latest installment of the popular semi-annual contest "Guess the mid-year price of oil and gold". Already, there have been important price moves from last week when this contest was first announced.
Recall that the last contest concluded on New Year's Eve and was won by VP after a late upward move in the gold price. As always, the winner receives a free one-year subscription to the companion investment website Iacono Research.

The top ten finishers from last time are shown below. Yours truly moved from 6th to 10th over the last two contests, underestimating the moves for both commodity prices the last time around. While 10th is still a respectable showing, that trend is certainly not my friend.

[Note: If I do win - which may just happen someday - it will result in bragging rights only and the second place finisher will receive the first place prize.]

The results of the last contest are shown in graphical form below - after an initial upward dash, a complete loop was traced out around four pairs of guesses before the final move up during the last week of the year.
After entries close for the mid-year guesses, a new chart like this one will be populated with all the guesses that have been received and it will be updated every other Friday until the last few weeks in June when the tension will really mount and weekly updates will be provided!

No, the tension doesn't really mount.

Well, maybe a little.

The contest is based on the combined percentage differences between the guessed values and the closing prices on June 30th, 2008 using the near-month (August) Nymex futures contract for WTI crude oil and the COMEX closing bid price for gold bullion.

Entries may be made either by posting them in the comments section of this post or sending mail to either tim-at-iaconoresearch.com or tliacono-at-yahoo.com. All entries must be received no later than April 22nd, one week from today - there will be at least one more notice such as this one as reminders and current subscribers to the investment site can win a free one-year extension to their existing subscription.

The winner will be announced on June 30th - good luck to all!

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.