Oil Is Getting Whacked

Oil is taking a beating this morning, along with other commodities like gold and silver.

It's been on a steady downtrend since yesterday, but the selling has really accelerated this morning amid several U.S. economic data releases that missed economists' consensus estimates.

Most notably, retail sales unexpectedly contracted in March, and consumer confidence plummeted as well.

WTI crude oil futures are down 2.6 percent today, near $91.10 a barrel.

"It looks like the ship is being abandoned," Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy, told Bloomberg's Mark Shenk. "This is the second day in which we've seen strong selling accompanied by high volume in both WTI and Brent."