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1. Buy and sell oil futures. A 'future' is a type of 'derivative.' In the case of oil, the price of the future is 'derived' from the price of oil. Many different oil futures are available for trading. You must have an online brokerage account that offers futures trading. You can choose between futures that track the price of light sweet crude oil or those based on the value of Russian oil blends. Futures for heating oil, ethanol and natural gas are also available. You buy and sell futures similarly to stock transactions. However, futures are more highly leveraged. That is, the risk-to-reward ratio is higher and profits and losses usually arrive at a much faster pace than through trading of more stable financial products, such as exchange traded funds.
2. Purchase shares in any online brokerage account of an exchange traded fund (ETF) that tracks oil. An ETF trades on the stock market just like stock. You can buy and sell as many shares as you wish, whenever you wish. Most online brokerage accounts have access to most ETFs. For oil, the ETF with ticker symbol 'USO' is a popular choice. This ETF, the United States Oil Fund, offers a close approximation to the actual price fluctuations in oil. If the price of oil rises 15% over a period, USO's share price will do nearly the same. But you can also use an ETF to leverage the fluctuations in oil. Ticker symbol 'UCO' offer two times the fluctuation of oil. If oil rises by 2% in a day, your holdings in UCO will rise by approximately 4%. If you think oil's price will fall, ETF 'SCO' is a double inverse ETF for oil. If oil falls by 5% over a period of time, SCO will rise by about 10% as a result.
3. Trade the stocks of oil companies. You can easily trade stocks online with most online brokerage services. While many factors affect the share prices of corporate stocks in ways that do not affect direct oil derivatives such as futures and ETFs, they are still among the most popular ways to profit from a rise in oil prices. As oil becomes more valuable, the products these companies provide sell at a higher price which increases earnings. Ultimately, this usually leads to higher share prices.