Crude oil is back to taking its cues from equity markets, as the easy gains from the low $70's have been registered. Gold's narrow range makes it easy to trade on a breakout. Commentary: Crude oil is lower after falling 0.14% in the prior session. Oil initially bounced following surprising DOE inventory figures, but subsequently fell back into the red, as U.S. equities gave up their gains. The Department of Energy reported that in the week ending July 9, 2010, U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 5.1 million barrels, gasoline inventories increased by 1.6 million barrels, distillate inventories increased by 2.9 million barrels, and total petroleum inventories increased 3.2 million barrels. This is the second week in a row that crude oil inventories fell by 5 million barrels; but while crude oil inventories have been declining faster than normal over the last two weeks, product inventories have been increasing at a faster rate than normal, in large part due to refinery utilization, which ticked up again last week to 90.5%, the highest level since January 2008. Technical Outlook: Crude oil remains in a very shallow uptrend, with prices attempting to climb toward the recent highs at $79.38. Beyond that is the channel top near $80.83. On the downside, $74.25 and $73.00, the channel bottom, provide support.

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