Make money when the price of oil, gold or real estate goes up, and do it the easy way! You can invest less than $500, or as much as you like.

What happens when the price of these “hard” or tangible assets go up? Speculators with a ton of money get rich trading commodities futures contracts or otherwise leveraging their money to the hilt.

Can the little guy make money without taking on heavy risk? You bet you can, and you can do it on a budget while limiting your exposure to risk.

When the value or price of these assets go up, so do profits for the companies that mine, refine, produce and invest in these arenas. For example, when oil prices are high so are profits for the oil companies. When gold prices soar, the increase in gold prices goes right to the bottom line of gold mining companies.

When real estate prices go up, companies that invest in commercial real estate like office buildings and shopping centers make big money.

When profits soar, stock prices follow suit.

You can invest in any of the above by simply buying and holding the appropriate mutual fund or ETF (exchange traded fund). For example, at today’s prices you could buy 100 shares of an ETF with the stock symbol DXO for less than $400. If oil prices take off, so should DXO. Or, you could buy 100 shares of URE for about $400 if you prefer the real- estate game. There are also ETF’s that track the price of gold.

An ETF is easy to buy, and you can sell your investment with the click of a computer mouse for a $10 commission, if you have an account with a major discount broker.

If you want to be more conservative, just buy mutual funds. Natural resources funds invest in oil company stocks. Gold funds invest in gold stocks, and real estate funds hold shares of real estate investment companies called real estate investment trusts (REITS).

You can speculate with small amounts of money in ETFs. Some of them give you 2X or 3X leverage. You don’t need to borrow money personally to get leverage.

You can also buy the above mutual funds to add balance to your existing portfolio of stocks and bonds.