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Put up to four markets on the same ruler. The shapes do most of the explaining.

EXITSWINGLEVERAGECARRYFRAUDNO RECOURSEBARRIEREXPERTISE
  • Natural gas 63 Extreme The worst carry profile of any commodity: some gas funds have lost almost everything while the spot price went nowhere.
  • Crude oil 53 Tough Liquid and leveraged, with a carry cost hidden in the futures roll — a market that punishes anyone who confuses the price with the product.
  Natural gas Crude oil
Exit difficulty 2 1
Volatility 5 4
Leverage 5 5
Carry cost 5 4
Fraud risk 2 2
Protection gap 3 3
Barrier to entry 2 2
Expertise needed 4 4
Difficulty 63 Extreme 53 Tough
In a sentence A regional, storage-constrained commodity whose price can multiply tenfold in a cold winter and collapse the following spring.The most politically consequential commodity in the world, traded in two main benchmarks that most of the planet prices against.
Unit Therm (UK), megawatt-hour (Europe), MMBtu (US) Barrel (42 US gallons / 159 litres)
Smallest realistic trade Wholesale lots; retail via ETC, CFD or supplier tariff Futures lot of 1,000 barrels; retail via ETC or CFD
Settlement Physical delivery at a virtual hub, or cash settlement against an index Brent cash-settled; WTI physically deliverable at Cushing, Oklahoma

The fingerprint measures how demanding a market is to take part in. It is not a rating or a recommendation.