[topher]

Actually rising oil prices is good news to the Stock Exchanges because the Fed will not raise interest rates but may lower interest rates to curb inflation...

So there is usually some bad news that propels stocks higher (rising energy costs...)

That is something I read last week, and I think is true...

But giving all those terrorist countries more money for terrorism (Iran, Russia, Libya, Angola, Nigeria) because the price of oil is going up is not good news...

[sefarkas]

Actually rising oil prices is good news to the Stock Exchanges because the Fed will not raise interest rates but may lower interest rates to curb inflation...

Your economics professor would not enjoy seeing you post such a remark. Oil prices are part of the formula used to determine "producer prices" -- higher oil prices means higher inflation. The Greenspan type of response to higher inflation is higher interest rates as a way to drain money out of the economy. The relative amount of money in circulation is the prime mover of the inflation measures. High oil prices are good for the DJIA and other measures because oil company stocks are important to those market-cap type indexes. Oil companies benefit from higher oil prices because their assets include oil in storage and under contract worth more than what they paid for it (by contract or discovery) even a month ago.