It was a strong day for oil prices today, with crude jumping $2.07 to close the day at $77.02 following today's news that the economy is growing faster than expected.

The irony of the situation is that oil prices rose today on news of strong economic growth, but the high oil prices are a major factor in what has been pushing the market down the past couple of sessions.

Since the United States is the world's largest consumer of oil, economic growth in America should lead to higher demand for the precious crude ahead. Typically when prices start to rise to record high levels we hear something out of OPEC that the oil consortium will be making some sort of output increase to deal with the prices, but so far we have not had that this time around.

Today's close was just a penny under last summer's record close of $77.03. Looking ahead to next week I would not expect to see too much of a move in prices during the first half of the week. I think we have hit a level now where no one is really sure which direction prices should go, but that may all change when we get our weekly inventory numbers on Wednesday. If we see rises in inventories we should get a little easing of prices, but if not... we could be looking at $80 oil by the end of next week.

For a better perspective on just how strong oil has been lately let's close with a look at a current chart:

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.