There's a big ballyhoo about oil these days. With the turmoil in the Middle East, especially in Libya, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is priced over $100 per barrel. Gasoline at the pump is almost $4.00 per gallon.

Why then talk about an oil glut? We should first look at where our oil is coming from. Believe it or not, Canada is the biggest exporter of oil to the U.S. Canada is sending so much oil to the U.S. that our pipelines and storage facilities can't handle it. Reuters reports that our key storage facilities at Cushing Oklahoma are filled to capacity and are not equipped to handle the oil flow.

The conflict in Libya continues to spark concerns over possible supply problems, sending oil prices soaring over the past couple weeks and settling at a two-and-a-half year high this afternoon.

In addition to Libya, oil also got a push today from a falling U.S. dollar. The greenback was down in reaction to speculation the European Central Bank would be raising interest rates, to fight possible inflation.

Consumer confidence fell more than expected during the month of March, hitting a new three-month low as high gasoline prices weigh on the minds on consumers.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index read 74 during February, but dipped in March all the way down to 63.4. Going into today's reading, analysts had been expecting to see the consumer confidence index decline, but only to 65.

Reuters quoted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as saying: "We're not in the business of trying to create inflation. Our purpose is to provide additional stimulus to help the economy recover and to avoid potentially additional disinflation, which I think we'll all agree could also be worrisome."

Bernanke claims that inflation is below the Fed's 2% target. That's hogwash! Sure if you use the "core" CPI, which leaves out food and energy, that may be the case. Not to worry.

After a strong day yesterday for oil prices, the precious crude has had another strong showing today, rising $2.04 a barrel to $79.90, and was trading above the psychological $80 mark earlier in the day.

One of the main catalysts pushing oil prices higher today was a better than expected jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department that showed that first time jobless claims were lower than expected last week.

Oil prices have been steadily falling over the past week, but reversed course today and managed to gain $0.89 a barrel to close the day at $72.52.

Today's rise came despite a bearish inventory report that showed oil inventories rose by 4.11 million barrels last week, well above the 300.000 barrels that analysts had been expecting to see.

Oil prices have been steadily falling over the past 3 weeks, but broke through the psychological $75 barrier today as the Energy Department announced a drop in inventories last week.

Going into today's inventory report, analysts had been expecting to see oil inventories drop by 2 million barrels, but the impact that Hurricane Alex on operations in the Gulf was greater than expected and supplies actually shrank by 4.96 million barrels.

Oil prices have been falling recently, and they continued to fall Wednesday, resulting in oil having its first losing quarter since the end of 2008.

Oil prices have dropped by 9.7% since the end of the first quarter on growing concerns over the global economy and due to lackluster summer demand.

On Tuesday, the big news was that China was growing slower than previously expected. On Wednesday, we had two pieces of news affecting oil prices: oil inventories and a weak jobs report.

Tuesday was a tough day for oil traders, with oil prices falling 3% to a two-week low.

The main thing spooking traders was a report that indicated growth in China was running lower than previously expected.

The Conference Board announced that, when it previously released that China's leading economic indicator rose by 1.7% during April, there was a calculation error. Instead of growing by 1.7% in April, it actually grew by a mere 0.3%.

Oil has been enjoying a very strong rally over the past couple of weeks, but prices are trading a bit lower today following this week's oil inventory report from the Department of Energy.

Going into today's report, analysts had forecast that we would see a 1.2 million barrel increase in reserves, but the build up was slightly higher at 2.0 million barrels of oil in reserve.

Oil prices continued to rally today, with prices jumping $1.56 a barrel to $86.43.

Today's jump in oil prices is a reaction to positive news today that indicated the economic recovery could be stronger than anticipated.

Gasoline futures closed at $2.2851 a gallon on Wednesday. That's a gain of 21% since February. The price of gasoline futures is the price at wholesale. Retailers can up the price to whatever the traffic will bear.

Right now gasoline at retail is about $3 per gallon. Retail gasoline, which closely follows crude oil prices, is up 5.5% over the past three weeks and 42% higher than a year ago.

ExxonMobil (XOM) is a tricky stock to consider. The integrated oil entity reported fourth-quarter results on Monday, and there was good news and bad news. According to Jonathan Berr over at DailyFinance, net income was $1.27 per share, several pennies ahead of estimates. The top line also came in better than expected.

Unfortunately, profit on a dollar basis dropped over 20%. And higher oil prices are making things difficult at the refinery stage. While the earnings beat is good, these elements to the story must be given ample consideration.

Retail sales results are pouring in, and one of the companies finding itself on the smiling side of the data is Costco (COST). The warehouse club reported that higher gas prices and a weak dollar helped a "key sales figure" increase 9% during December. The Street expected Costco to report an increase of 7.9%. Removing higher gasoline prices and the soft dollar from the equation resulted in a sales increase of 4%. U.S. sales increased 2% and international results increased 10%.

Costco (and other warehouse stores) turned in a solid month, as shoppers looked to stretch their dollar as far as possible. When you can go into a store and purchase 50 toilet paper rolls for a reasonable price, why wouldn't you shop at a bulk retailer?

Oil prices, which were up earlier in the session, have moved lower in afternoon trading after the dollar rebounded from earlier losses.

Earlier in the session, the U.S. dollar had dropped as much as 0.3% against competing currencies, but reversed course and made back most of its losses. The greenback is now down just 0.1% on the day against competing currencies.