"Oil at $300 in 10 years time? That is about par for the course. Retail petrol prices in India in 1965 were Re 0.5 and are 108 times as large today.

"If a blood descendant of Nostradamus had correctly predicted this increase in 1965 it would have made the bears roar, little knowing how foolish they were going to look, a few decades down the road."

David Fuller's view The commodity price rises during my career in the financial business, which extends back almost that far ('65, not to Nostradamus' dates) has been astronomical. This says more about the declining purchasing power of fiat currencies than real commodity price inflation but the costs of producing industrial commodities in particular is increasing and weather problems can cause supply disruptions in the agricultural sector.

For these reasons, those of us who know how to read price charts and can also trade, seek to protect ourselves by opening positions in line with the trends.