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8:30 AM EST Tuesday, October 17, 2006: Once in everyone's lifetime a great, "can't lose" gamble comes along. Soros made a billion or shorting the British pound. I think you can make it in oil.

Long-term it will rise from last night's below $60 price for a barrel of light sweet crude. You know my long-term reasons from the last few days' columns.

Short-term -- i.e. over the next year -- the price of oil may explode. We may be looking at $200 a barrel. I have new reasons. Last night I attended a lecture by Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh. Scott has just written a new book:

In it and at last night's lecture, he argues that the U.S. will soon invade Iran. Our reason? Regime change. If that we do invade Iran, it will retaliate instantly by bombing the oil fields of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and blockading the Strait of Hormuz, through which a big percentage of the world's oil moves. Says Scott, "Within two days every American will feel the pain in their pocketbook."

Nothing will happen before our November election. We have some time to figure the best way of playing this. What we all need to do:

1. Read Scott's book. Click here.
2. Read my column tomorrow. I'll explain more of Scott's logic and what he and Hersh said last night.
3. Check into the best way of playing this. There are many ways of playing a rising oil price -- from Canadian oil sands companies (now moving up) to iShares or buying crude oil futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Today, you can "control" a December '07 oil futures contract worth $68,020 for $6,100. This is NOT the same as buying a call option. If the price of oil goes to $0, you will lose $68,020. If it falls below $60, your broker will ask you to put up more money. But because it's so leveraged, you can make a lot of money if the price of oil goes up significantly.

There are also call options and other ways of playing this. That will be my assignment today.

I've plugged this movie before. Now there's a free 12-minute clip on Google Video. It's worth watching.

Click here.

High yield savings accounts: Writes reader, Richard Lubman:

Harry,
With respect to your column today, there are other, higher yielding providers than Emigrant -- Countrywide and Superior Savings of New England. Also, a consistently high yield, NOT a bank product, and not FDIC insured, is GE Interest Plus. If GE Capital goes out of business, there will be some larger problems!. And Vanguard Admiral Treasury Money Market fund, while lower yielding, may have the best yield after state income taxes are taken into account.

Australian miners continue to pop: The two biggest poppers remain Kagara Zinc (KZL) and Minara Resources Limited (MRE). I remain bullish on Australian miners.

Cheap Fall Getaway trips: All the airlines are pushing cheap flights to Europe this fall. My son, Michael, and I will pack a couple of folding bicycles and go to Brussels, Paris, Dublin or London or somewhere for a weekend of biking and sightseeing.

This is SOOO stupid. But I love it.
A man and his wife walk into a dentist's office. "Doc, I'm in a big hurry! I have two buddies sitting out in my car waiting for us to go play golf. So forget about the anesthetic and just pull the tooth and be done with it. We have a 10:00 AM tee time at the best golf course in town and it's 9:30 AM already. I don't have time to wait for the anesthetic to work!"

The dentist thought to himself, "My goodness, this is surely a very brave man asking to have his tooth pulled without using anything to kill the pain."

So the dentist asked him, "Which tooth is it, sir?"

The man turned to his wife and said, "Open your mouth, Honey, and show him."


This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look mighty interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Claire's law school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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