[BRIEFING.COM] Commodities are mixed this morning, while the dollar index is trading near session highs of 81.76. Energy markets are weak, excluding natural gas. October crude oil has been in the red all session. A few minutes after pit trading began, crude hit its lowest level of the data, falling to $74.66 per barrel. The energy component has only recovered modestly since and was near session lows ahead of the inventory data. Following the data, which showed a draw of 2.489 million versus consensus of a draw of 2.5 million, crude ticked modestly higher and is now 1.5% lower at $75.64 per barrel. October natural gas, on the other hand, rallied into positive territory before 8:00am ET and has remained there in recent trade. Natural gas hit fresh morning highs of $4.05 per MMBtu just after the open and moved back to those levels in the most recent activity, now 1.5% higher at $4.02 per MMBtu. December gold has been chopping around between around $1266.80 and $1271.70 per ounce for the last four hours and is currently just under the unchanged line at $1271.00 per ounce. December silver fell into the red and to new session lows of $20.34 per ounce 10 minutes after pit trading started. However, the precious metal quickly bounced back into positive territory and back near current session highs of $20.56 per ounce. Silver is currently 0.7% higher at $20.57 per ounce.

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