For those that had the fortitude to pull the trigger, shorting crude back in early July when all the perfect storm conditions for $200 per barrel oil were on the horizon ... and had the stones to stay with that trade ... made a killing.

This is one of the greatest reversals for any major market of any kind that has ever occurred. And it clearly shows how the crude oil market was being manipulated by speculators and hedge funds.

The impact was fatal for hundreds of small airlines and small- to medium-sized trucking companies, along with thousands of other companies that didn't hedge against the price explosion in energy.

The price of crude, which topped out at $147 per barrel in July 2008, crashed to $35 per barrel by Dec. 18 -- a 76% haircut -- before getting a bid that got the price back above $40 on the eye-popping headline that OPEC would slash daily production by 4.2 million barrels.

It wasn't too long ago that oil prices seemed destined to be on their way through the psychological $80 barrier, but the past week has put the brakes on rising oil. Why? Well... you can blame , or thank (depending on which way you were betting) the slowdown in oil prices on the subprime mortgage market.

That's right, you read it correctly. The weakness (meltdown) in the subprime mortgage market has made its way into oil prices. It was really only a matter of time before a connection and traders have finally decided to connect the dots. After all, the first domino to fall will be consumer spending, which in turn will result in lower oil demand by both consumers and corporations and thus lead to lower oil prices.

This impact is even more dramatic by the fact that we are also seeing rising oil supplies. These two facts combined are painting a more bearish picture than we have seen in a long while. For example, during the month of July, OPEC oil production rose last month by the most since September 2004.

What we are seeing so far today is oil dropping by $1.16 down to $74.32. Even though this is a decent $4 drop from the $78.77 high that we saw last Wednesday (a 5.6% sell off) this is still, by all standards, very high prices for oil. I don't want to put out the impression that oil prices are falling though the floor or anything, but we are seeing a decent drop in prices considering we are only talking about 3 days.