[artplumber]

Not that hard to understand. A few forces at work.

Fed about to inject more money into system to further try to jump start the economy, thus devaluing the dollar further. People don't want dollars so much, and also like commodities to hedge the devaluation.

Wall street happy with gridlock in DC (with the GOP owning a branch of govt), therefore think that business will be better as well - more demand for crude.

Crude prices go up, yielding an immediate reaction at the pump (unlike when crude goes down, that usually takes three weeks to work its way through the system to the consumer, thus padding the oil co's profits).