S&P 500
7,401.00
+0.91%
Dow Jones
49,665.70
+0.19%
Nasdaq 100
29,241.00
+2.43%
Russell 2000
2,860.88
+0.82%
FTSE 100
10,263.70
+0.48%
Nikkei 225
63,767.70
+2.68%

Energy

Oil Tries to Interpret Inventory Data (OIH, USO, OIL)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Invalid Image
The Department of Energy gave some critical data in its weekly oil inventories.  Frankly, you can make a bullish case here and a bearish case as well.  The drop in crude oil came to -978,000 barrels over last week.  Dow Jones had a figure of a build at +1.7 million barrels, but we had been told to expect far less of a build than that.  That would be very bullish on the surface, until you parse the other data.  We are watching the Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH), the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) on the news.

Gasoline stocks posted a huge build of more than 2.9 million barrels.  Dow Jones listed an expectation of only 600,000 barrels and we were looking for a smaller build than that.  Distillates came in at +679,000 barrels, and Dow Jones listed an expectation of about +200,000 barrels.

The capacity of refineries in the U.S. ran at 85%, up from 84.6% last week and above an expectation of 84.3% from Dow Jones.  This 85% compares to 84.5% to 85% that we were looking for from our own figures.

Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH) is up 1.5% at $118.75, the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF is down 0.1% at $36.50 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is down 0.15% at $24.01 on the news.  NYMEX WTI Crude is currently trading up $0.06 or $0.07 at $70.95.  Again, this sounded very bullish on the crude headline, but it looks like it was entirely made up for in higher gasoline inventories.

JON C. OGG
October 7, 2009

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Oil Inventory Gains Trump Weak Refining (OIH, USO, OIL, UCO)

The Department of Energy has just released its weekly oil inventory data, which was something to watch considering the move…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Inventory & SPR Data Confuse Oil Bulls & Bears (OIH, USO, OIL, UCO)

There were two very interesting events in the crude oil markets today.  As with almost all Wednesday’s we got the…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Shaking It Up in Weekly Oil Inventories (OIH, USO, OIL)

The weekly data on oil inventories from the Department of Energy is out and we are seeing another bullish yet…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Mixed Oil Inventories; Refineries Return (OIH, DIG, USO, OIL)

The weekly oil inventory data from the Department of Energy is out with some very mixed data.   The headline data…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Huge Surprise in Oil Inventory Data (OIH, USO, OIL)

The Department of Energy just released the weekly inventory data in crude and oil products, and the headline figures are…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Solid Oil Inventory Data, Mixed Metrics (OIH, DIG, USO, OIL)

The Department of Energy has just released its new weekly data on oil inventories. The headline data looks good for…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

DOE Oil Inventories Back Up (OIH, DIG, USO, OIL)

We have just seen this week’s latest Department of Energy weekly oil inventory data.  The new report is on the…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Oil Inventories Head Wrong Way, Again (OIH, DIG, USO, OIL)

The latest weekly inventories data from Department of Energy in crude and oil products is adding more support and adding…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

DOE Oil Inventory Heads the Right Way (OIH, DIG, USO, OIL)

The Department of Energy has just released this week’s oil inventories data.  While there are gains almost on all counts,…

Top Gaining Stocks

Akamai
AKAM • Vol: 21,556,944
Micron Technology
MU • Vol: 65,135,624
Intel
INTC • Vol: 227,504,426
Monster Beverage
MNST • Vol: 15,284,847
Dell Technologies
DELL • Vol: 12,167,525

Top Losing Stocks

Mettler Toledo International
MTD • Vol: 539,266
Motorola Solutions
MSI • Vol: 3,101,643
Expedia
EXPE • Vol: 4,189,786
Coterra Energy
CTRA • Vol: 73,319,495
Fidelity National Information Services
FIS • Vol: 11,468,820