This was one of those days where profit takers had the markets soft all morning, but strong pending home sales rallied the stock market and trumped an inverted spending and income figure. A revision for a lower hurricane season helped insurers.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,315.51 +28.95 (0.31%)
S&P 500 1,004.86 +2.23 (0.22%)
Nasdaq 2,008.80 +0.19 (0.01%)

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As late as yesterday, forecasters believed that powerful Hurricane Ike would hit south Florida. Projections from the weather man now put its path straight over Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. The would make its U.S. landfall in either Texas or New Orleans. It would also bring it close to refineries and oil platforms that where threatened by weaker storms that ended up doing very little damage.

Ike, on the other hand, is a Category 4 storm, and that means the its damage could be exponentially greater than any storm that has hit the Gulf in three years. That leaves the potential of a real interruption in oil production and an increase in crude and gas costs.

So far, the price of oil has been immune to the weather, but OPEC may lower production and, combined with a big storm, crude begin to move back up toward $120.

The prevailing wisdom is that oil is on its way to under $100. But, prevailing wisdom has been wrong before.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Beyond the torment it has already caused in the Carribbean and the stress it places on those who are evacuating the Gulf Coast, hurricane Gustav will lead to higher prices at the pumps. That's because the majority of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production is shut down in anticipation of Gustav's force.

Exactly how much production is being shut down? CNNMoney reports that "energy producers have shut in approximately 77% of oil output and 37% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico." This is affecting three producers particularly hard -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS.A), BP PLC (NYSE: BP) and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX).

And the production shut-down is significant -- "nearly 1 million barrels of daily oil production is now shut down. The last time this happened was in November 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In addition, 2.75 billion cubic feet of daily natural gas production is now shut down" according to CNNMoney.

Hurricane Dean's presence in the Western Caribbean has forced over a dozen cruise ships to quickly change their itinerary towards the eastern side of the Caribbean this week. The storm, currently moving as a Class Three hurricane through the Yucatan peninsula, has affected Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) the most.

According to the company's site, as of Sunday, August 18th, the itineraries of over ten Carnival ships have been altered, forcing them to dock in Eastern ports-of-call or cancel a part of their stay. CruiseCritic.com has reported that a dozen of Carnival's ships were impacted from Dean. The company could not be reached for comment. Only three Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE: RCL) ships needed to steer clear of the storm.

Despite many weather stations calling Jamaica "Ground Zero" all weekend, the island nation received a glancing blow on Sunday. Gene Sloan of USAToday's "The Cruise Log" reported today that Royal Caribbean will be the first to test Jamaica's waters on Wednesday, as originally scheduled. Carnival's spokesman Vance Gulliksen told Sloan their line expects to resume calls in Jamaica next week and plans to return to the Caymans as early as later this week, but is "awaiting final confirmation."

The major question is the impact of Dean on Cozumel and other Mexican ports on the Yucatan Coast. Check out CruiseCritic.com's Hurricane Zone for an updated list of the damage reports.

During the summer, two things most Americans relate to are higher temperatures and higher natural gas prices. This year, however, happens to be an exception.

During the summer, there are two key factors that control the price of natural gas: the potential for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and the amount of gas in storage. Luckily, the country hasn't experienced a severe weather event since Tropical Storm Barry opened the hurricane season in June. Natural-gas futures have fallen nearly 13% since the $8 highs last month, down to the $6.75 region, mostly because of the amount of gas already in storage. Paul Flemming, director of power & gas research at Energy Security Analysis told the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that gas prices could drop $1 if the Gulf can make it through this year's hurricane season unscathed.

Now comes the added new finds from the Independence Hub off the coast of Louisiana, an offshore platform owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corp (NYSE: APC), which is expected to ship 50 million cubic feet of gas daily starting today, and ramp to 1 billion cubic feet -- 1.5% of domestic production -- over the next few months: natural-gas futures are nearly down 3.7%, to $6.48 on the news.

When storage hits capacity, prices tend to drop. Tancred Lidderday, an economist with the Energy Information Administration, believes the market is close to hitting capacity. The EIA reported Thursday there is 2.69 trillion cubic feet of gas in storage, or 16% above the five-year average for storage at this time. The Independence Hub can only improve that storage capacity. With consumption expected to rise 4.3% in 2007 and a modest 1.1% in 2008, it doesn't look like natural gas prices will surge this summer unless a major storm rolls right into the Gulf.