Another AP Blunder: Oil

More terrible business reporting skills from the AP this morning:

Oil Inches Up in Wake of Last Week's Terror Alert in Gulf SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices inched up Monday in the wake of a terror alert in the petroleum-rich Gulf region last week and as traders watched for signs that OPEC nations were following through on announced production cuts.

Light, sweet crude for December rose 7 cents to $60.82 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Now, as you may recall, on Friday the AP's Jeannine Aversa reported that 'markets slumped' after they came off by 0.3% in the morning's trading. Now, it appears, oil prices are 'inching up' in the wake of a new terror alert - despite moving less than the markets did on Friday, by a totally unremarkable 0.1%.

This is not news, it's garbage; leave it alone. The news is that over the past week oil prices have been in a downward freeze as equity prices have broken significant records. But of course, that doesn't sell papers like a terror alert does. Plus, traders have known for weeks about potential production cuts in oil by OPEC - if any of them are reacting to them now they're a little late to say the least. What is interesting to note is the lack of reaction of oil markets, meaning most of that value we saw earlier this year there has now been significantly factored out.

This type of reporting misleads and undermines our economy.