Comment on the April 30th posting:Â There was a hike last week to $3.89, so any brave predictions that $3.75 was the high for the year was dead WRONG.
Saturday, May 10, 2008, 4:45 PM: My previous prediction was based on the observation that metals had stopped going up and agricultural products had stopped going up, so now it was energy’s turn. Nope. You know, though, this is what happens at the end of a big run up — instead of 50 or 100 things going up, only 2 or 3 do, until the impulse to buy disappears. At some point soon, that will happen with oil and gas, and there will be a day when the wholesale price drops 10% in one day, and at that point the fever breaks. But I have no idea when that will happen, and the way wholesale prices continued to climb through Friday was scary. NYMEX prices are up 10 cents since Tuesday, putting the 20-cent margin price at $4.01, and NYMEX is working better than AXXIS for predictions right now. So, the scene is set for a hike this coming week to $3.999 a gallon. Ugh!!!!
$3.999 all over the SA website, as predicted.
I’m kind of surprised that they went to $3.999 instead of $3.959. That is a higher margin than they normally restore to.
But, I think they are trying to convince people that they need to factor credit card fees into their margins. Credit card fees average about 2.5% per transaction for most stores. At $3.999 the credit card companies get 10 cents per gallon. When we are all trying to average a 15 cent margin, it is rediculous to give the credit card companies 10 cents out of it.