Oil prices inched up slightly today, despite the fact that inventories swelled much more than the market had anticipated last week. Going into today's inventory report from the U.S. Department of Energy, analysts had been expecting to see an increase in oil inventories last week. But, on average, analysts had been expecting that the increase would be around 3.4 million barrels, and the actual increase was much larger, with a reported 6.2 million increase: a very bearish indicator. Typically when we see inventories rise so much higher than expected, we would expect to see traders push oil prices lower, but not today. Instead, oil was able to move a bit higher on the day, trading up 58 cents a barrel to $42.16. Earlier in the session prices had been up as high as $43.60.
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