Oil prices hovering below $81

SHOOT: Everyone should be watching oil prices if they're eager to find out whether [or when] we'll see a recovery. If oil prices rise it means the economy is expanding. Of course, rising energy prices is exactly what will kill an expanding economy - but that is where we are in a world that has discovered unlimited wants and demands, and limited [finite] resources. And we're locked into this conundrum unless - or until - we discover a technology or mechanism that allows us a get-out-of-diminishing-energy jail, and that isn't very likely to be soon or on the sort of scale we want...

clipped from finance.yahoo.com SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices hovered below $81 a barrel after a two-day jump fueled by growing investor optimism that global crude demand is recovering. Benchmark crude for April delivery was down 23 cents to $80.64 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract climbed $1.19 to settle at $80.87 on Wednesday after rising 98 cents on Tuesday. Oil prices have traded in the $70s for most of the last eight months, rising above $80 several times only to fall back amid concerns that crude demand in developed countries is lagging behind an overall economic recovery. "This might herald the first signs of a pick-up in distillate demand," Barclays Capital said in a report. "As the normalization in economic growth continues, commensurate to which oil demand recovery becomes more broad-based," inventories should fall.