Forum Overview :: Lemonade Stand :: Re: Update: scrapped idea

[quote name="Choson"][quote name="Ray of Light"]Because that's complicated, too. At my institution you can't but that stuff without a margin account and credit checks etc. Plus everything I read says these are very sophisticated instruments and that the average idiot should not try to buy them.[/quote] Actually, it's probably a lot simpler than whatever strategy the fund you bought into was using to mimic the price of oil -- if it's like the ones that got caught up in the commodity drop last fall, it probably uses those same futures and rolls them over every month, which is where they'd be taking hits on contango and underperforming. So I'm not really sure using a fund is using a less sophisticated instrument. But I hear you about wanting to stick to cash transactions and away from margin, it's definitely a root cause of the current big problems with the financial industry.[/quote]