Oil Up $3.00 Today -- On the Crawler -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

There are so many "prices" for oil, and so many "kinds" of oil, that it doesn't make a lot of sense to snapshot a price, but a $3.00 jump on the TV crawler oil price (TCOP) does get one's attention.

Most of the oil companies and transportation companies lock in their energy prices with contracts and hedges. The TCOP is of little concern for them.

But yesterday "everyone" was talking about another recession, oil falls, and today, oil back up again.

For newbies, current oil prices reflect the following:

• <$60: recession, depression
• $60 - $80: fundamentals, supply and demand
• $80 - $100: strength/weakness of the dollar
• >$100: fear, panic, anxiety, greed, "speculators" (as used by the mainstream media), world events; embargoes; war in the Middle East, etc.