The government takes over AIG and the world becomes a rosier place…at least temporarily. Concerns still linger about the other large financial houses and until those concerns are addressed look for only brief breaks in the clouds as the eye of this financial storm passes overhead. Natural gas looks to be putting in a bottom but won’t get interesting into the slide in oil is arrested and that would actually take a little more attention span for fundamentals than the market’s got right now. News out of the energy group remains muted and I think everybody wants to shut the books on the quarter and hold back major announcements until they could have some positive effect. I remain patient and extremely cautious.

In Today’s Post:

1. Holdings Watch
2. Commodity Watch
3. Stuff We Care About Today
4. Odds & Ends

Holdings Watch: No changes yesterday.

Commodity Watch:

Crude Oil fell $5.20 during the day before rebounding somewhat to close down $4.56 at $91.15. This morning crude is gaining back $3+ of the loss as the dollar shows signs of eroding. At least that’s one theory on the reason. Here are some other things the market has recently ignored that may be coming into play plus we have inventories later today:

• OPEC / Hugo Chavez Watch: Venezuela’s oil minister said they would consider calling an emergency meeting if oil prices fall further. One month ago these guys were talking oil lower…be careful what you wish for.  OPEC is not scheduled to meet again until December 17.

• Nigeria Watch: The Nigerian government claims up to 115,000 bopd of additiolnal shut ins have occured in the last 4 weeks. Chevron has removed some personell and Shell has confirmed some pipeline sabotage. In addition, the group claims to have blow up a "very major trunk line", a statement that has not been confirmed and is now threatening to take its attacks further offshore to the larger production platforms.

• Peaceful Is As Peaceful Does Watch: IAEA shows off pictures of a nosecone of a Shahab-3, 1,250 range missile modified to accept a nuclear warhead. Hmmm. On the one hand you have the "this reactor is for power purposes only" and on the other you have statements about wiping various places off the globe, work on nuclear weapon delivery systems, and well, common sense.

• MMS Watch: The Minerals Management Service now reports 28 platforms as destroyed with aggregate production of 11,000 bopd and 82 MMcvgpd. I would expect the losses to rise slightly in the next few days.