WTI oil prices continue to churn near $103, as the oil market cannot, as easily, shrug off the crisis in Ukraine and Gaza, as the equity markets. To reiterate a common theme or point here: the Ukraine situation has a lot of Russian crude oil and refined products hanging in the balance. The Gaza situation is more emblematic of the overall troubled Middle East region, which serves more to obscure or distract from the disintegration of Iraq. The IS forces have apparently taken more land in Syria that holds some oil interests.