The oil market has been in the hands of the bulls. The talk on Wall Street is of $100 per barrel oil. Traders are betting that OPEC will not raise production. In 2008, when oil spiked to $147 per barrel, OPEC was stretched to the limit. Now the situation is different.

The price of oil is reaching a critical point. The oil spike of 2008 was a factor in setting off the Great Recession. Many fear that "demand destruction" -- a permanent downward shift in demand -- could take hold again. The price of oil and the price of gasoline are nearing a point where they are pulling too many dollars out of household budgets. Gas at the pump is close to $3.50 per gallon. If you recall, when gas moved from $3.50 to $4.00, it forced consumers to cut back on their driving and thus brought prices back down.There is an added problem: Our economy is still fragile. A spike in the price of oil could slow growth this year.

They say you should buy low and sell high, which is easy to say but hard to do. How low is low and how high is high?

Sometimes technical support and resistance levels can be helpful in finding those highs and lows. Right now oil stocks like Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), PetroChina Company Ltd. (NYSE: PTR) and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) are just bouncing off support that may be the "low" many traders are looking for.

What is going to happen with crude? Two sessions ago, black gold dropped 7% to trade in the $35 region. Yesterday, crude hovered near break even. Today, we have the weekly crude inventory report -- which should have a modicum of impact on crude's price.

What I find interesting is the fact that we haven't seen the relief at the pump yet. I know that the Cushing, OK reserve is fully stocked and some of the crude sent to the stations is still from a time when black gold was worth more. But we have to be getting close to the $35-per-barrel stuff, right? I know right now I pay roughly $2 per gallon -- and I know, I should quit whining, but still....

This oil trade takes the cake.

At the zenith of the speculative bubble in the oil patch -- when crude hit $147 per barrel in July -- you had everyone from T. Boone Pickens to Prince Alaweed touting $200-per-barrel oil by the end of the year.

Crude is now trading around $40 -- down $107 per barrel in less than six months. Unbelievable!

And this latest drop comes after OPEC voted to cut daily production by an eye-popping 4.2 billion barrels per day.

Looks like the world is awash in crude oil.

Needless to say, those euphoric longs in the oil stocks got destroyed. Most energy stocks lost 50% to 70% of their value during the course of the sell-off in crude.

And remember those television commercials with T. Boone and Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) CEO Aubrey McClendon pushing for the expansion of natural gas?

Well, natural gas prices are down 60% from their mid-year highs.

If you put money into T. Boone's Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) as recently as September, when the stock was trading at $20, you now own Mr. Pickens' vision for $5.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Future crude oil supplies may be a lot tighter than thought. That is what the International Energy Agency in Paris is expected to find when it releases its assessment of the world's 400 major oil fields in November, according to the Wall Street Journal, a reversal from previous reports and is based on a lack of investment and aging oil fields.
• The Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a nonprofit safety organization, found serious side effects linked to Pfizer Inc's (NYSE: PFE) Chantix, a smoking cessation drug. Chantix, which has been banned by the FAA for use by pilots and air-traffic controllers, is already tied to psychiatric issues, including depression and suicide, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the report also points to heart trouble, seizures and diabetes.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The New York Times reported that the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund has accused American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG), along with several of its executives, of inflating its stock price artificially by understating the company's exposure to the subprime mortgage crisis. According to the lawsuit, AIG's Q1 loss of $7.8B shocked investors because the insurance giant assured them that any losses on credit insurance "would be limited".
• Following speculation a Chinese entity would look to take a stake in Australian miner BHP Billiton Limited (NYSE: BHP), Huang Tianwen, the president of Sinosteel Corp, said the company has not formed a bid for the firm. The Australian reported that Chinese steel mills may look to buy into iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group.

What a difference a week can make! It wasn't that long ago, August 1 to be exact, that oil prices were setting record high prices and appeared to be ready to charge above the psychological $80 barrier. Well, that was 9 days ago and 10.2% above oil's current price, as concerns over the U.S. economy have pushed prices down by more than $8 a barrel.

Currently we are seeing prices down another 87 cents to $70.72.

So what is the major problem here? I wish I could pinpoint the concerns down to one single factor, at least that way we would be able to try to figure out exactly how deep the problem goes, but unfortunately there are several factors weighing down oil prices at this time. They include (but are not limited to):

• Reports suggesting a sluggish U.S. economy
• Concerns that the subprime mortgage woes are spreading into different areas in the market
• Jobless claims have been on the rise
• Disappointing July retail numbers
• Ongoing uncertainty over supply coming out of the Middle East

The picture is pretty dim at this point. The main problem is, of course, the impact from the subprime mortgage meltdown on Wall Street. Credit concerns have spread across other areas of the market and many are fearing that corporations are going to start to really feel the impact of lower consumer confidence. This has been reinforced lately in the form of weak July sales from retailers.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2006. Vote for it as the Money Story of the Year or check out the other nominees in the category.

Gas prices are truly the Money Story of 2006. Along with crude oil prices, they peaked during the middle of the year and then, just as some forecasters were talking about $5 per gallon, they promptly took a nosedive.

Some people are claiming that this is a temporary calm in the storm. They cite the rising energy demand from the modernization of China and other emerging markets as indicators of higher prices to come. Others mention that the tensions in the Mideast, in particular, are still present and act as a potential source of supply disruptions. Some even talk as if this is the beginning of the 1970s all over again.

Maybe so -- anything is possible. However, the stock market does not seem to be cooperating. Gas prices are the story of the year, but it's not the story that these people wrote. The gas bubble broke (pardon the pun), letting out not only a lot of hot air but also fuel for the current stock market rally.

The decrease in oil prices has eased inflationary pressures and allowed the Federal Reserve to go on hold with its string of interest rate increases. This has indeed provided gas for the current equity bull market.