Contest: Guess the price of crude

Update: Comments are now closed! I hope to announce the winner this evening.

Guess what the futures price of NYMEX Light Sweet Crude Oil will be when the markets close on Friday, November 9 and you could win a $10 Amazon.com gift card in this contest!

The New York Mercantile Exchange is where oil futures contracts are traded in the United States; it's these prices which have been making the news over the past couple of weeks as crude for December delivery approaches $100 per barrel. The person who guesses the closest per barrel NYMEX price (as reported on CNN.com) when the markets close on Friday wins a $10 Amazon.com gift card.

BONUS PRIZE: The individual with a website you directs the most traffic to this article (as tracked by Google Analytics) also wins a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate. I must be able to figure out who you are and your email address. Because I'm using Google Analytics to track the inbound links, you must post the "permalink" address of this article to a website, which means spamming your friends with email won't work. If there's a tie, winner is determined by random drawing. The permalink address is

http://www.cyclelicio.us/2007/11/contest-guess-price-of-crude.html

First, read this to get a handle on where prices might be headed. Then read the rules, then make your guess. If the price busts through $100 per barrel any time this week, I will double the prize, even if the price later retreats.

Rules:
1. Only U.S. and Canadian residents are eligible. Entries must be received through comments on this . You must provide a valid email address, either through your Blogger.com profile, your web page that you link to in your comment, or by contacting me directly before I announce the winner this weekend. If you have a contact form through which I can get an email address, that's good too.

2. The prize will be a $10 Amazon.com electronic gift card sent via email from Amazon.com. If there are technical problems in commenting, receiving email or sending email, that's your problem.

3. The person who comes closest to guessing the Friday closing NYMEX Light Sweet Crude futures price without going above the price wins. If two people guess the identical price, the first guesser wins. ONLY ONE ENTRY PER INDIVIDUAL. MULTIPLE ENTRIES MAY INVALIDATE ALL OF YOU ENTRIES. That means if you guess $98.30 tonight, then you see the price dive below $80 on Thursday and change your mind, you're stuck with your original guess.

4. When I close comments on this post Thursday night or Friday morning, no more entries will be accepted.

I may make this a regular feature, though I'll probably change things around to stuff like "Guess the U.S. average gas price" and so forth, so stay tuned!