Your real problem isn't so much that the nominal price is going down, but everything that's happening around the price changes. Since we last calculated 2010, BEA has adjusted the currency deflator for that year, which would actually make your losses worse if we went back and recalculated.* (I used $110.659 2010 dollars to $100 2005, but the figure is now $111.644.) In order to hit $101/barrel for this year, the average price has to climb somewhere between $112 and $113. And that assumes that there's been no inflation in 2011.
My problem, of course, is that part of oil's value has been inflated by a general rush towards commodities as the dollar is inflated. But I think that's a "my winnings won't be as large as justifiable" rather than "going to tip me into losses" problem.
*In the meantime, I learn something else about structuring long bets: you should also fix the determination date well in advance, in order to deal with revised statistics.
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My problem, of course, is that part of oil's value has been inflated by a general rush towards commodities as the dollar is inflated. But I think that's a "my winnings won't be as large as justifiable" rather than "going to tip me into losses" problem.
*In the meantime, I learn something else about structuring long bets: you should also fix the determination date well in advance, in order to deal with revised statistics.
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