You can tell the oil market's in rough shape when companies are drilling more to pull in smaller profits. This is the situation in which Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) finds itself, with lower energy prices pushing down the cash that comes through the door.

So, its revenue was up for the most recent quarter, but earnings were down. The $262 million that came to the bottom line is 61% lower than the profit for the same quarter the year before.

Oil prices moved above $60 a barrel earlier in the day, but where unable to maintain their gains and have since dropped below the psychological $60 barrier once again.

Earlier this year oil had been making steady gains as investors bet on an economic recovery occurring in the second half of this year, but we are now in the second half of the year and a recovery is nowhere in sight. As a result, traders have started to focus more on the underlying fundamentals for oil, and this has led to a pretty steep sell off over the past couple of weeks.

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....

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.

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.

After a brief selloff yesterday, oil prices have been moving higher in today's action. Buyers have come back into the market today and pushed prices up as high as $95.00 earlier in the session, Prices nd are now up $1.20 to $94.69.

The main reason why prices have turned higher today is optimism about the economy created by this morning's better than expected October payroll report. According to the U.S. Labor Department, October saw a 166,000 increase in payrolls, which was more than twice the 80,000 increase that analysts expected.

The better-than-expected payroll report was enough to create some optimism of the overall economy, and put some recession fears to rest. According to Michael Lynch, who is president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research Inc., "It suggests that concerns about the economy ... are overblown a little bit."

Oil prices are once again trading at record highs today following a very bullish inventory report from the U.S. Energy Department. Prices had been down earlier in the session, but are currently trading up $3.90 to $94.28 after setting a new record of $94.56 earlier in the session.

Today's price move comes in reaction to the weekly inventory report which showed that America's oil supplies have dropped to a new 2-year low. Leading into today's report, analysts had been expecting to see a rise last week of 400,000 barrels of crude, but were shocked to discover that supplies actually fell by 3.89 million barrels.

On Monday I wrote a post posing the question of if and or when we will be seeing $100 oil. In that article I stated that I felt we were definitely heading to $100 oil, but that it would probably take a couple more weeks to get there. That was, unless we got another big miss in inventories, which we now have seen.

The world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) will get have its chance to impress investors this Thursday morning when it releases its third quarter numbers.

The company will be announcing its most recent quarterly results before the market opens, and will host a conference call to discuss the numbers starting at 10:00 AM EDT. Analysts expect to see Exxon Mobil show earnings of $1.75 per share for the quarter, and a massive $112.97 billion in revenue.

High oil prices could turn out to be both good and bad for Exxon Mobil this time around. With prices trading at record highs we can expect to see revenues balloon this period, but on the other side of the coin, high oil prices do tend to result in lower refining margins, which could hurt the bottom line. Last week, the third-largest oil company in the world, ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) fell victim to shrinking refining margins, and reported a 5 percent drop in quarterly earnings.

With oil's recent strong moves to the upside, we are now sitting at record high oil prices and are within striking distance of crossing through the psychological $100 barrier. This leads us to ask ourselves if and when $100 oil is finally going to become a reality.

OK, first I have to decide if I think that $100 oil is in fact coming in the not-so-distant future, and to that question the answer is yes, I do. When you look at the current market dynamics, all indicators point to even higher oil prices coming our way. But when? When will we see the $100 oil that everyone is starting to talk about?

With oil prices currently at $92.38, we really aren't that far from seeing the magical $100 mark. With only a little over 8 percent to go, it is feasible to argue that prices could hit $100 this week. I don't think we will see $100 oil this week, but it is a possibility. Let's consider that prices are already trading up about 9 percent from last Wednesday, when we got our last U.S. inventory report from the U.S. Energy Department.

The week has barely gotten under way and oil has already reached new record highs. Last Friday we saw a new intraday high of $92.22, but that record was shattered today with prices moving up as high as $93.20 earlier in the session, and are currently trading up $0.97 to $92.83.

Last Friday I took a look at a look at several factors that have been pushing prices higher, and these are all still in effect, but today's move comes from a new source of supply concerns out of Mexico. Today's jump to new highs was spurred on by news that a storm in the Gulf of Mexico was forcing Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, to cut back about 600,000 barrels a day worth of oil production.

Pemex announced yesterday that bad weather had already forced the oil company to cut back about 200,000 barrels of production and that another 400,000 barrel cut was on the way. The company produces on average around 3.2 million barrels a day.

Oil prices moved to new highs today as traders continue to weigh concerns coming out of the Middle East. After hitting a new high of $92.22 earlier in the session, prices are now trading up $1.25 to $91.71.

The reasons for today's move are once again tensions in the Middle East, which have helped crude prices jump over 7 percent since Tuesday. There are several factors that are leading to rising prices, so let's take a closer look at each of these contributing factors.

The first factor is tension between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. This began last week when Kurd rebels from Northern Iraq invaded Turkey and killed 12 members of the Turkish army. This has resulted in Turkey amassing around 100,000 troops along the border between the two countries. There have been reports that Turkey has been firing artillery across the border, and reportedly shelled three different villages in Northern Iraq yesterday.

There have also been reports of an altercation between Israel and Lebanon yesterday. Apparently the Lebanese army fired on Israeli warplanes. This raises the fear that if violence escalates then it would pull in some of the larger oil producers in the region.

Oil prices have picked up right where they left off yesterday, fueled by new concerns over tensions in the Middle East. Prices have moved up $1.42 on the day to $88.52 and hit an intraday high of $88.99 earlier in the session.

Yesterday, traders pushed prices higher after the U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory report showed an unexpected decline of 5.3 million barrels, but today's extra price gains are being attributed to new violence between Israel and Lebanon. Any Middle Eastern conflicts will result in price gains, and that is exactly what we are seeing today on news that Lebanese troops fired on Israeli warplanes.

While it is true that a conflict between Israel and Lebanon would not impact supplies from the region, there is always the fear that an escalation of violence between the two would draw in the big oil players in the region. This is the first encounter since last summer's conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rebels, which pushed oil prices to last summer's highs.

Oil prices are continuing today to pull back from their recent highs. Crude has fallen 19 cents, down to $85.08, and were briefly trading down as low as $84.68 earlier in the session.

Last week prices shot up on fear that escalating tensions between Turkey and the Kurds of Northern Iraq could lead to supply disruptions in the area. But those fears have been overlooked during the past couple of sessions as traders are now paying closer attention to American inventory levels.

When the U.S. Energy Department releases its weekly inventory report later this morning, analysts polled by the Dow Jones Newswires are expecting to see crude inventories jump by around 300,000 barrels. If there is indeed a jump in inventories, you can be sure prices will continue to come under selling pressure, but not everyone agrees we will see inventory levels increase. Some industry experts are taking the opposite position and predicting a 2 million barrel decrease last week.

For now, the bears are winning, but we will get a much better picture of the current situation once the actual numbers come out later this morning. I will post the results here as well as the markets reaction.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer