Comment on the November 18 prediction: Well, that was WRONG as prices hikes on November 20. So, I took a week off from predicting.
Monday, December 3, 2012, 7:10PM: In a decade-plus of The Gas Game, December has usually been the month where we would see the lowest prices of the year. From my data collection, prices this year in Standale, Michigan got down to $3.26, and today we are getting close at $3.36. We are also getting close to price hike territory, though, when I estimate retailers’ margins. Most likely, we will be seeing a price reset this week, maybe even tomorrow, to the neighborhood of $3.49. That would be $1.75 if the retailers ever decide to start pricing gas in half-gallons. Hey, if they can do it to these products, why not gasoline? –Ed Aboufadel
355 in grand rapids MI
$3.49 reset in Toledo, OH this morning.
Under $3.20 in sw Ohio this morning. Average still $3.34. Don’t think we’ll spike until the average here drops to around $3.25. BUt, I have been wrong before.
And as soon as I type that…
GREEDway spiking to $3.499 in Ohio right now.
Grrrrr!!!!
I subscribe to The Gas Game thru email feeds from FeedBlitz and FeedBurner, but each has an advantage AND a disadvantage. FeedBlitz sends its email about 12 hours earlier than FeedBurner, so I’d think it was more useful as I’d have more time to respond before predictions made come true (or false, I guess). But the email I get from FeedBlitz is completely unreadable — seems to be written encoded in HTML and CSS and UTF-8 and Base 64, the combination of which seems to be unreadable in my admittedly old (but more useful to me than anything else I’ve ever found for email) Eudora email client. The FeedBurner email, OTOH, is perfectly readable, but it doesn’t get sent ’til about 12 hours later! It comes from the Google people, so I’f expect better of them, but no! Here are the Date headers from this posting’s respective e-mails:
FeedBlitz: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:15:01 -0500
FeedBurner: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:17:34 -0500
What I’d like to know is why can’t people just send emails as text (or regular HTML if they absolutely MUST express themselves as they could in a word processed document — wouldn’t it just be easier to send an email with a link to the “Gas Game” [in this case] web site?)?
Sorry, this got longer than I planned, but all this fancy email stuff isn’t necessary, and it frustrates me beyond words!
Frustrated, I don’t know — I’ll try to find out.
Filled up this morning for $3.32 in Standale.
I just knew Greedway had to have a hike this week!!!!
$3.49 for Fort Wayne. The area really wasn’t ready for a hike, didn’t really HAVE TO HAVE it. It didn’t start till 4:00. and it is still spreading slowly. But hey, never let it be said that one of the three states could let a spike go uncopied. I was able to get Shell for $3.13 on my way home from work.
Chicago Spot sitting at $2.579.
Despicable, Greedway. Despicable.
For a couple months now, I have been commenting on and off about the seemingly growth of the price difference between the wholesale and retail. There appeared to be a growth in the margins at retail. It appears that there is growth in margins in the entire process of oil from crude to retail.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/this-chart-implies-something-very-troubling-about-the-price-of-gas/
In Ohio, we used to be able to count on the spike price being spot-plus-70. The last few were plus 85. Yesterday’s was plus 92. Will the next one top the $1 mark?
And here’s why, IMHO – – hike now, prices falling the next two weeks will make us prime for a spike – YES – RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!! My prediction, based on nothing but what they do.
Funny you should mention that, Sam. I was thinking that this morning as I was getting around to go to work. How this spike was setting us up perfectly for the Christmas weekend. If they are “nice” they will wait a few days and spike it on Thursday or Friday.
Filled up at a Pilot outside Anderson this morning at $3.29 which is a 6 cent drop since yesterday. What a pleasant surprise! Short lived I’m guessing though lol.
Just a little anecdotal observation: On the Gas Buddy Live page, you can watch the live reports of gas prices. excluding the reports of “No Change in Price” the Green or “Price Down” outnumber the red or “Price Up” by about 3 to one. Just lucky to live in Indiana, I guess.
I almost fell for the $1.75/half gallon a while back while staying in Chicago for a long vacation with the family. We went to a grocery store to buy some ham and cheese (tired of eating out) and saw really good deli prices – till we noticed they were for HALF POUND 🙂
Anyhow, some interesting notes:
1. Diesel is getting to the point where it’s up to 25% pricier than gasoline.
2. Diesel does not seem to fluctuate remotely as much (it’s high 24/7/365)
3. We seem to have run our course on instant price hikes areawide – now, like the good old days, it takes a lot longer for spikes to propagate (the recent one started Tuesday afternoon and will be implemented by Thursday. A lot more time for us consumers
4. A very funny thing happened on the way to the low gas price zone. I get a lot of my gas in a low price zone when possible. Seems that the low and high zones are reset to the same high as expected, then they drop in unison till some point where the high price zone stops dropping, and the low price zone has a massive (all things considered) drop. That’s how we get from the 3.17 price on low zones to 3.31 price on high zones. They start at the same, say, 3.49 or 3.55, drop in unison up to, say, 3.35, then the lows drop a serious amount in one day, the low zoners enjoy maybe 3-4 days of low prices while the high zoners drop a cent a day, then at time of reset the low zone is nearly 15 cents lower than the high zone, and so the low zone resets MUCH higher (3.17 to 3.49 versus 3.31 to 3.49)
Any thoughts?
Turbo,
A thought on your zoning theory. Watch the price difference between 2 Meijer gas stations. The new one on Ivanrest in Grandville, and the Meijer on 16th street in Holland. I would say that Grandville would be in the high zone and Holland in the low zone. There seems to be a 7 to 10 cent difference at the low price before a reset. Also, I’ve been watching the price of the Speedway across the street from the Holland Meijer, and it seems that they are the first one to raise prices on any given day.
My local speedway:
$3.34 Day before hike and day of hike
$3.55 day after hike
$3.31 today
Spot price at $2.47. Spike price of $3.499-$3.559, depending on state. Someone’s getting rich, and it ain’t us.
I filled up today at 3.00 a gallon in NE
Huge price differences in Muncie. South Walmart just changed their price to $3.17 while most of the rest of town is still above $3.40. Not hard to figure out what part of town to tank up in.
It’s true Chris. The spike hike in Muncie lasted less than 36 hours, and Daleville Indiana went down the day of the spike to $3.29, while Anderson went up to the $3.49 spike.
Back down under $3.20, north of Cincinnati(Fairfield, OH).
Other stations north of the city dropped from $3.499 to $3.299 to $3.239 yesterday.
$3.179-$3.199.
Looks like this Greedway spike is failing miserably in most areas. I say most, because some areas are still $3.399
Holding steady @ $3.30’s in TC, MI
Looks like they are setting up for a Christmas hike. But its not like that wasn’t expected from Greedway though.
I was in Muncie this afternoon just shaking my head at all the $3.39 plus prices on the north side of town, so what did I do? Went to Walmart on the south side and tanked up for $3.10. They were lowering the prices as I pulled up….gotta love that!!
Weekend GMA and also this morning’s news reporting that gas should be about $3 a gallon by Christmas. On Friday, where I live it was $3.55 after the hike last week, this morning it was $3.38.
Can’t wait for that “surprise” hike before Christmas. Really isn’t fooling anyone before major traveling holidays when fuel prices spike 2-4 days prior. Stay filled up!
Wholesale gas down 16½¢ as of 2:35. It will have to be erased before Christmas so the price can spike for the holidays.
Topped of for $2.989 last night. Been a while since I’ve been able to do that.
Travelled from Cincy to Bloomington (and back) for work today. Prices got higher the further west (and south) I got.
$2.989 at home, lots of $3.39s and $3.43s in southern Indiana.