Oil is trading higher on the day, but prices have fallen a good bit from the high they hit immediately following this week's inventory report.Prices rose as high as $83.03 a barrel, and are currently trading at $81.97, up $0.48.
The reason why prices spiked so much following the report was the initial reaction to the smaller than expected rise in crude reserves. Analysts had been looking to see a jump of 2.1 million barrels last week, but the report indicated that inventories rose by a much smaller 1.4 million barrels.
That was all it took to send oil higher, but the market seems to have given the report a second glance, and allowed prices to drop a bit.
According to oil analyst Stephen Schork, there was "nothing inherent in the report to justify buying up to $83 per barrel." He noted that traders should not get caught up paying too much attention to this one week's worth of data, and points out that the past few weeks we have seen either really big increases, or really small decreases in inventories.
OPEC was also in the news today. OPEC stated that world demand during the year is now expected to rise to by 900,000 barrels a day. It based its upwardly revised figures on a sustained global economic rebound.
How oil stocks are trading:
- Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) : The stock is trading up 0.8% to $67.31, up $0.53.
- Chevron Corporation (CVX) : Chevron is trading lower today, but that is more in reaction to a broker downgrade that it received earlier today.
- ConocoPhillips (COP) : The stock is up 1.4% to $51.54, up $0.69.
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