Crude prices pushed above $105 per barrel early Wednesday after U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear said additional strikes on forces loyal to Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi will be launched in the "coming hours and days."

The BBC reports coalition forces launched new air strikes near Misrata, a rebel-held city in western Libya while Gaddafi loyalists "resumed their pounding of Zintan," near the Tunisian border. (See: Gadhafi Will "Probably Survive": Oil Up as U.S.-Led Coalition Starts to Fray)

With political unrest and military conflict spreading across the Mid-East and North Africa, oil prices have already risen 15% this year, and $100 appears to be the new floor.

"I'd loved to say it's the peak but it doesn't look like that," says Robert Powell, Middle East analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit. "We don't expect the Middle East to settle down anytime soon [and] expect the price of oil to remain elevated for quite some time."

That, of course, will keep gas prices elevated, which Powell notes is "particularly tough on the U.S." because we don't have nearly as high gasoline taxes as in Europe.
"So people here notice any shift in oil prices," he says. "It puts up the cost for businesses and the man on the street, which hits consumer spending."

If the unrest spreads to Saudi Arabia then "all bets are off," Powell says, suggesting crude could "easily" rise above $150 per barrel in such a scenario.

Click "more" to read the rest of the post and embed the video.

Provided by Business Insider, Wednesday, March 23, 2011:

Good morning. Here's what you need to know.

•Asian indices were mixed in overnight trading with the Nikkei down 1.65%. Major European indices are trading up and US futures indicate a lower open.

•The Egyptian market opened for trading today for the first time since late January. The market however crashed about 10%. Don't miss: The 11 countries that could become the next Egypt.

•The fallout from Japan's Fukushima reactors have got worse. Tokyo now reports that drinking water is not safe for babies with levels of iodine at twice the safety limit for babies though it continues to be safe for adult consumption. Emergency workers and technicians were forced to evacuate Fukushima's nuclear plant after smoke began emerging from its no 3 reactor. Check out incredible pictures and videos from the Japanese disaster.

•Irish 2-year bond yields have surged to 10%, the highest levels since the crisis. This move comes after EU finance ministers yesterday agreed on a permanent rescue fund.

•Portuguese 10-year bond yields have spiked to 7.58% ahead of today's vote on the country's austerity budget. Rhe country's opposition party announced that it would vote "no" on today's austerity budget.

•Unrest in the Middle East continues. Syrian security forces fired at protestors gathered outside a mosque in the town of Daraa killing six and wounding others. The UN military intervention in Libya continues, with more coalition attacks today. Oil meanwhile. is approaching $105 a barrel.

•Amazon opened a virtual app store for Android phones and tablets. This comes after sales of smartphones using Google's Android overtook iPhone sales recently.

•Baidu, China's biggest search engine company is working to develop a light operating system for mobiles over the next 3 -5 years.

•New homes sales figures will be released at 10 AM ET with the consensus at 290K.

•The estimated cost of the Japanese disaster has now been raised to $309 billion which is twice the cost of the Kobe earthquake. Re-insurers are not expected to take as big a hit as was initially expected. Don't miss: Our guide to the economic impact of the Japanese disaster.

•BONUS: Rachel Zoe, reality show star and celebrity stylist has gone into labor with her first baby.

"Once you start dropping bombs on a place, you are at war," says Robert Powell, Mid-East analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit. "You can't skirt around it with diplomatic language."

But clearly there's a difference between imposing a no-fly zone in Libya and all-out invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. While limited military engagement lessens the possibility of casualties (fortunately, the crew of the F-15 were reportedly rescued, unharmed) it makes for a tougher diplomatic challenge for the U.S. and its NATO allies.

Now that the Arab League - which originally called for the no-fly zone - becoming "a bit squeamish" since the bombings started on Saturday, the coalition has been damaged, Powell notes. "It was hugely reassuring for countries involved to have Arab backing. Now that that Arab backing is wavering considerably, it makes it feel a bit lonely and it arguably helps Col. Gadhafi's position."

In addition to the Arab League, the NATO coalition is facing diplomatic pressure from Russia, China and Brazil, which have each called for a cease-fire, while India has said there should be no foreign intervention in Libya, The New York Times reports.

Responding, perhaps, to such pressure, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the fighting “should recede in the next few days” during a press conference in Moscow Tuesday. 

The external diplomatic pressure and internal divisions within NATO over who is going to take the leadership role from the U.S. increases the prospects of Gadhafi remaining in power. 

"Muammar Gadhafi can probably survive because the rebels are not well armed or well organized," Powell says. "If he's going to stand his ground; if he's determined to carry on the fight, I can't imagine this going on for months because the coalition could be begin to disintegrate and their aims are rather vague."

Uncertainty over Libya's future, in turn, is helping put upward pressure on oil prices. In New York futures trading, crude jumped above $104 per barrel on Tuesday, even as Libyan rebels control most of the nation's oil assets and announced the formation of a new national oil company. 

Aaron Task is the host of Tech Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @atask or email him at altask@yahoo.com

Despite recent volatility, the market has held up pretty well this month and appears to have found its footing in the past three days. Clearly, the downturn could've been worse given the headlines coming from Japan, Libya and the Mid-East generally -- not to mention America's ongoing struggles with high unemployment and the bursting of the housing bubble.

Lest you lapse into a false sense of complacency, we bring you Gary Shilling's 5 Things to Worry About:

Click "more" to read the rest of the post.

Stocks are surging midday Monday but so are oil prices. Recent history suggests the combination of higher oil and higher stock prices is unlikely to persist for very long.

But a longer scan of history suggests higher oil prices are not as big a threat to the economy as you think, according to James Altucher, managing director of Formula Capital.

First, Altucher says the economy today is far stronger than it was in 2008, when a financial crisis and housing market implosion combined with surging crude prices to tip the global economy into recession.

"We couldn't quite handle $150 oil [in 2008] but now we're definitely able to," he says. "We don't have any of these crises and we have QE2 to buffer what happens. "

Second, he says oil prices can't maintain higher levels unless demand increases too.

Third, as painful as higher energy prices may be for American consumers, we spend less on energy today as a percentage of income vs. 50 years ago.

"In 1960, we spent 7.5 cents from even dollar in income on oil. Right now we spend 5 cents," he writes at Forbes. "So, in that math, it appears we can absorb at least a 50% move higher in oil. But that's not the entire picture. In 1960, we spent 5 cents of every dollar of income on healthcare and today we spend 17 cents of every dollar on healthcare. So an important point here is that rising healthcare has never tipped us into an economic depression so not sure how oil going from 5 cents to 10 cents of our income will tip us over either."

Rather than come to a screeching halt because of higher energy prices, "the economy will shift on its axis," Altucher says, suggesting. "No one wants to spend more buying gas at the pump [but] spending is spending."

In other words, money spent on gas instead of, say, dinner at a restaurant, still circulates through the economy. "The energy sector will definitely grow...and the thousands of companies related to energy infrastructure will prosper," he says.

On his blog, Altucher recommends Exxon, Plains Exploration and Noble Energy as top picks in the sector.

In the accompanying video, he recommends CVS because of its leadership position in the growing field of retail-run health-care clinics.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 tumbled 6% overnight and oil prices slid below $100 per barrel early Monday amid a worsening crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

An explosion rocked reactor number three at the plant, less than two days after a similar explosion at reactor number one. In another ominous development, the cooling system has reportedly failed at a third reactor, number two, where the nuclear fuel rods were "fully exposed" Monday morning, according to Reuters.

Japanese officials say only "low levels" of radiation have been released thus far. But more than 200,000 residents have been evacuated from the surrounding area and the U.S. Navy moved the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan further offshore after the aircraft carrier "passed through a radioactive cloud...causing crew members on deck to receive a month's worth of radiation in about an hour," The NYT reports.

As Henry and I discuss in the accompanying clip, financial issues pale in significance to the unfolding environmental and humanitarian disaster. Still, Japan is the world's third-largest economy and global markets are having a dramatic reaction to this natural disaster.

After more than $300 billion of market value was wiped out in Japan overnight, U.S. stocks fell early Monday. Among the hardest hit stocks were reinsurers such as Munich Re, nuclear power producers like Exelon, Shaw Group and General Electric, which built turbines for the ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi plant.

But U.S. averages were not down dramatically in recent trading, thanks in part to renewed weakness in the dollar after EU officials increased the size of their bailout fund and the Bank of Japan pumped a record 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) into the financial system and doubled its asset-buying program, Bloomberg reports.

U.S. crude futures dipped below $100 before recovering amid reports of violent protests in Bahrain. Meanwhile, agricultural commodities such as corn and soybeans fell amid expectations of falling demand from Japan.

In the past five days, Japan has been hit by the one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history, a massive tsunami and now the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl -- and one with a still highly uncertain outcome. It's fair to say that no market players were thinking about catastrophes of this magnitude when they took on recent positions, much less three in such rapid succession.

The housing bubble may have burst but another American real estate boom rolls on: Since 2000, U.S. farmland values have risen by 58% after inflation, according to the FDIC. And since 2003, they've risen by over 10% annually.

Surging agriculture prices, a weak dollar, fear of financial assets and rising global demand for food have all contributed to this boom. The question now is whether it's becoming a bubble.

"It's very reminiscent of period we had in 1970s," when farmland prices surged 350% in less than a decade, says Bill Isaac, former FDIC chairman and current chair of Fifth Third Bancorp. "I'm hoping we don't let it get that far."

At an FDIC symposium in Washington this week, Isaac discussed the "worrisome trends and similarities between the 1970s and today," including: loose fiscal and monetary policies, massive deficits creating inflation, and a weak dollar spurring demand for agricultural exports.

When Paul Volcker became Fed chairman in 1979, he had a mandate to break the back of inflation. In the process, Volcker burst the farm bubble: foreclosures skyrocketed as land prices tumbled and about 300 farm banks failed.

"It was very painful," Isaac recalls. "I hope we don't go through another boom-bust cycle."

The FDIC symposium was designed to avoid such an outcome by alerting bankers to the potential risk of their ag-related exposure. Although the 100 largest banks account for about 25% of farm-related loans, Isaac says he's more worried about smaller, less diversified community banks in agricultural producing regions.

Suggesting regulators and bankers have learned the lessons of the 1970s farm boom and the more recent residential housing bubble, Isaac is hopeful this cycle will be less painful. That is, "as long as we don't let the bubble get out of hand," he says. "If we let bubble get out of hand, all bets are off. "

And as long as Ben Bernanke is at the helm of the Fed, the ‘smart money' is going to keep betting (on) the farm.

Oil prices fell sharply Thursday morning but stocks tumbled as Moody's downgrade of Spain put Europe's debt crisis back in focus. European bourses tumbled overnight and the euro fell sharply vs. the dollar, which in turn put downward pressure on stocks, commodities and other so-called risk assets. 

After falling below 12,000 Thursday morning, the Dow was recently down 177 points to 12,035. Gold and oil prices were also sharply lower. (See: Charles Nenner: Crude and Other Commodities Nearing a Cycle To.)

Thanks to unrest in the Middle East and rising oil prices, Europe's debt crisis has been off center stage for a while. But problems in the Eurozone remain unresolved; namely, banks are still saddled with billions (if not trillions) of bad debt and there's not enough political will for another massive bailout -- even if the money were available.

In Spain, for example, the government had earmarked 20 billion euros for a bank "restructuring" package, a.k.a. another bailout. Some private forecasters have put the tally closer to 120 billion euros and Moody's says there is "a meaningful risk that the eventual cost of the recapitalization effort could considerably exceed the government's current projections."

Meanwhile, investors continue to speculate on potential defaults by other European sovereigns, most notably Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The price of credit default swaps on those nations' debts has hit record levels this week, Bloomberg reports.

Following a WSJ report earlier this week, there are also concerns the latest bank stress test won't nearly be stressful enough.

Finally, ECB President Jean Claude Trichet's recent comments about the likelihood of a near-term rate hike have revived questions about growth in the eurozone.

Like America in 2008-09, the Europeans were successful in kicking the proverbial can down the road with the EU-IMF bailout fund last spring. Less than a year later, Europe appears to be catching up to the can, as Henry and I discuss in the accompanying clip.

Crude oil is trading around $104 this morning, in what remains a very volatile market.  Prices are likely to remain elevated for sometime, says market forecaster Charles Nenner of the Charles Nenner Research Center.

The good news is oil prices aren't headed back to $147 per barrel, the record level reached in the summer of 2008.  "I don't see oil price(s) taking off," like so many fear, he tells Aaron in this interview.  In fact, Nenner predicts oil will top out at $107 per barrel by April.

Bullish on Exxon Mobil for the last year, Nenner says the world's largest oil producer still has room to run.  He predicts the stock will peak above $100 per share.

As a whole, Nenner is cautious on commodities.  His cycle work shows commodity prices peaking in the next few months. For those invested in gold and copper, he recommends taking profits.

While the upcoming weakness in commodities may translate into cheaper gas and food prices, it's nothing to cheer.  The "economy will be weaker than expected" in the next few months, says Nenner.

And, by the way, Nenner still predicts a major war to come in 2012 or 2013.  Whether the recent uprisings in the Middle East will spark this greater conflict, is unclear.

For those of you battered by a brutal -- and very snowy -- winter, the good news is that spring is around the corner and summer is just three months a way.

The bad news is that the potential for $4 a gallon gas is also growing closer. Yesterday the Department of Energy released its revised outlook for the price of gasoline, in which it said there is a 25 percent chance gas could hit or top $4 during the summer driving season.

With rising crude oil and gasoline prices, the Obama administration is looking for ways to ease some of the pain at the pump. One idea floating around is to release some of the stockpiles from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently holds 727 million barrels of oil -- enough to supply the U.S. for 37 days, USA Today reports.

But many argue that the run-up in gas and oil prices has nothing to do with supply and demand. (See: $200 Oil Is a "Totally Exaggerated" Forecast, Says Energy Analyst Gheit)

"Releasing petroleum stocks from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve isn't going to do anything to reduce prices," says Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, who believes rising oil prices are due to speculators and the bank lobby (See: $100 Oil? Blame Speculators and the Bank Lobby). "There are no supply shortages of oil in the United States" and in fact "refiners in the United States are operating at well below capacity … because demand for gasoline continues to be fairly anemic in the U.S.," he says.

For the same reasons, he says expanding offshore drilling isn't going to help either. He points to a report done during the Bush administration that found opening up more drilling wells would have a negligible impact on gas prices in the U.S.

"The United States sits on a tiny reservoir of oil," he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. "We are not Saudi Arabia. We cannot open up the spigots and tap into huge reserves that immediately result in large increases in daily production."

Slocum says a better solution would be to give consumers more tools to help them be better prepared for ever-rising energy prices. He suggests repealing the tax credits for oil companies and instead directing that money to consumers to help them buy new energy efficient technologies, like hybrid cars.

Public Citizen also advocates for windfall taxes on oil profits. For more, watch the interview.

Do you support end to big oil tax credits to instead help consumers?