With ease of accessbility to markets, also known as overcoming barriers to entry, new problems arise. If you had been invested in the ETF mirroring the daily price fluctuations(with a given margin of error stated in the prospectus) of the Nymex crude oil contract (CL) you would have underperformed your underlying by about 35%! Here is am image to show the ratio of the two.USO vs. CL

Whether it’s the expensive rolling over of the contract due to the contango or anything else there is an alternative: trade on the Nymex. This has become increasingly easier over time with the simple tools provided by brokers such as IB which is also IPOing soon. Due diligence on daily price fluctuations and probabilities and a “behavioral” analysis of crude is necessary to be sure your trading is not being affected by noise and normal fluctuations.