According to the Financial Times, "Companies doing business in "terrorist-sponsoring states" could once again have their names under scrutiny under a controversial plan being revived by the Securities and Exchange Commission."

In June, the SEC sparked controversy by posting the names of companies that did business with Iran, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba. The agency quickly removed the list amid complaints from companies, who complained that the SEC didn't research the materiality of the connections.

Now the SEC is considering putting the list back up, and rightfully so. This is all about disclosure and transparency: if investors don't feel that the connections are material, they can ignore the list. But there are people who want to know whether the companies they're investing in have ties to terrorist states, and the SEC has a role in making information available to investors who request it.

More information for investors is always a good thing and if companies are embarrassed about showing up on the list, maybe they should reconsider their ties to these countries.

Oil futures have moved higher in today's trading following today's weekly inventory report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that showed inventories shrank much more than analysts had been expecting. After trading up as high as $77.43, prices have cooled off a bit, but are still trading up 15 cents on the day to $75.88.

Analysts had been looking to see a drop in oil inventories of around 2.2 million barrels for the week ended August 31, but the actual figures showed that inventories fell by almost twice that amount, dropping 3.9 million barrels.

After falling sharply during the first three months in August, prices have been strong over the last couple of weeks and are once again on their way to testing its record high of $78.77 set on the first of last month.

The oil market is definitely a volatile beast, and any such unexpected decline like the one that we see today is bound to bring the bulls out in full force. Last month's sell off was mainly due to the fact that traders were concerned that the subprime meltdown would start to impact economic growth, but now traders have started to look past this concern and focus once again on supplies.