The usual Wednesday morning Energy Information Administration was delayed by one day this week due to the Monday holiday.

We just got the info…

Crude oil stockpiles hit a new weekly record high at a whopping 504.1 million barrels. That is an increase of 2.1 million barrels over last week.

Gasoline inventories increased 3.0 million barrels while distillates increased by 1.4 million barrels.

Wrong way Jose’!

However, there is some good news in this report. Weekly production FELL 51,000 barrels a day. That is a significant decline.

Supplies in storage did rise at Cushing by some 36,000 barrels bringing the total there to 64.733 million barrels. Remember, most analysts estimate total capacity there at Cushing to be in the neighborhood of 73 million barrels.

Crude oil, which had traded up to near $32 ahead of the report, faded very quickly after the EIA data was released and is now bobbing into and out of negative territory for the day.

The range trade remains intact.

Incidentally, as oil has come off, so too have equities which are now negative on the session. That has led to a resurgence in the RISK AVERSION trades with the Yen moving higher, the bonds up over a full point ( above 165) and Gold solidly higher.

Increasingly it is looking as if gold has held support at $1190 and will now consolidate as it digests some of its recent torrid gains.

There is a chance that a bullish flag or pennant could be forming on this chart.

You can see that the shaded rectangular area marked “RESISTANCE” is containing it for the moment. Some time spent between this overhead level and $1190 on the bottom would actually be constructive as it would allow the metal to work off some of the overbought levels for some of the technical indicators. As long as it holds above $1190, the bulls have the advantage here.