Today was “sell the commodities day” on Wall Street.

All the nervous nellies who climbed into oil futures, gold, and other commodities over the last week as the financial stocks went through their personal meltdown, decided, apparently, that today it was time to unload them.

That was why, when it was reported that crude oil inventories did not increase as much as had been expected in the U.S. last week — oil prices declined anyway.

Usually, we’d see the price rise.

For the day, the price of a barrel of light crude was down almost $5, ending the day at $104.48.