Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 9:30PM: Wholesale prices jumped up 7 cents today, while retail prices have been sliding a bit. Combine that with tomorrow being Thursday, and I predict a hike to $3.79 is coming. — Ed Aboufadel
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- Diesel prices are on my mind, and Michigan seems to have avoided a Midwestern hike so far: https://t.co/2vuUW5O5LP 02:12:26 PM May 14, 2023 from Twitter Web App
- Nothing like a 40-cent difference in the same county: https://t.co/EWWMJGEPpI 01:22:52 PM May 07, 2023 from Twitter Web App
- A reasonable price right now in Michigan: $3.39. Details here: https://t.co/nTDJqXpahS 12:36:28 PM April 30, 2023 from Twitter Web App
Why We Are Here
We enjoy predicting and trying to further our knowledge in the gasoline and oil industry. Our ultimate goal is to "win" the game of price hikes and to accurately predict hikes.
Current Contributors:
Ed A.: ab...@gvsu.edu
Craig P.: cr...@paull.net
Tim S.: ts...@gmail.com
Bill E.: pa...@yahoo.com
The name of the site is based off an essay Ed wrote for the Grand Rapids Press titled "The Gas Game". The current website was established later by Patrick DeHaan after he and Ed predicted gas price hikes on GasBuddy's website GrandRapidsGasPrices.com, as well as Ed’s personal web page.
Note: To be precise, add 9/10 of a cent to all prices described on this web page.
Current Contributors:
Ed A.: ab...@gvsu.edu
Craig P.: cr...@paull.net
Tim S.: ts...@gmail.com
Bill E.: pa...@yahoo.com
The name of the site is based off an essay Ed wrote for the Grand Rapids Press titled "The Gas Game". The current website was established later by Patrick DeHaan after he and Ed predicted gas price hikes on GasBuddy's website GrandRapidsGasPrices.com, as well as Ed’s personal web page.
Note: To be precise, add 9/10 of a cent to all prices described on this web page.
Filled up yesterday @ 3.46, figuring the classic MI 30+ cent bounce would be happening today. anticipating the price jump fireworks about 1pm here in Flint.
My cost at 3.67 for today
3.79 in Grand Rapids
Flint has done a last second dip to 3.42 so prepare for the 30+ cent bounce to 3;75-3.79 already in place less than 10 miles south.
Local TV and radio is trumpeting stormwatch panic, So you called it. again..
Filled up Tuesday at 3.49 thankfully. Started seeing spikes yesterday – Akron, OH.
Indiana spiked today too. Fort Wayne has not yet. Probably will Friday; this has happened before. But rest assured, Fort Wayne will climb faster, and higher than the state. $3.50 at Sams right now.
Well, here it is Friday morning, not yet 5:00 local time, and the Lassus stations in town (local chain) is sitting at $3.79, and the Speedways are still at $3.59. Go figure. But by 10:00 or even earlier, every single station in town, every last one, will be at $3.79. Oh, maybe not Sams. They will go up to $3.62 and stay there till tomorrow, when they will go up to $3.72. Looks like $4 a gallon is coming as the new $3 this year.
The quicker they raise the price of gas the quicker the economy will tank. Hopefully when we crash again like 2009 maybe people will notice.
What baffles me is that business owners (who stand to lose as much as consumers) do not raise attention to the issue and instead continue to raise prices and lay off people, often blaming ‘regulations’ or ‘ObamaCare’…
Interesting that this time we have a chance for prolonged nationwide $4 without crude breaking $100. We would not want to unbalance the ‘growing’ demand in Asia and the like.
And along those lines Turbo, if a barrel were to peak again like in 2008 we would be $5+ instead of the $4.20 range. That’s 15%+ more. Interesting….and by interesting I mean down right ridiculous.
$5 gas?
But, but, but, they told me that inflation is tame.
Yep in 2008 oil hit $147 a barrel and I remember seeing $4.21 on the big Pilot electronic sign. $147 this year, hell we’d probably hit $6. We’re slowly becoming Europe without all the heavy taxes tacked onto the price, just pure greed. Oh yeah…Greedway is in control I almost forgot.
I would really like to see a market giant like Walmart get into the refining business for two reasons. One, it would be disruptive for the few established players (Valero etc) and Two, given Walmart market penetration and economy of scale they could really pull it off. Tie it to a loyalty program and watch money rain in.
Not going to happen of course but ultimately Walmart and the like have the most to lose when their customers are stretched thin. It is a zero sum game after all.
Ohio is jumping to $3.759 this morning.
Jumping to $3.899 here in Michigan. I’m so glad I don’t buy petro any more.
So, if Michigan jumped Thursday AND today, I guess that means Ohio will jump again later this week.
SMH
Yep, is 3.89 at greedway in Kalamazoo now…
If Michigan and Ohio have raised their prices, can Indiana be far behind? Of course not.
Greedway over here raised it to 3.79 last thursday and today it is 3.76. the prices in the area are between 3.60 to 3.79 (another greedway). Over this Rick Snyder wants to increase the state gas taxes; looking at the bad road condition I wonder where the earlier paid gas taxes went? did they do any road building or repairing or simply pocketed it? Michigan is a state of robbers sitting in Lansing Capitol they are simply making corporate friendly policies leaving people to be crushed by corporations! Good luck Dying in Michigan!
3.54 to 3.89 in Flint Mi. today. What is it about 35 cents being the average magic number for a spike? is there a special formula or rationale?
special formula or rationale is GREED!
Ocho: I don’t exactly know why, but I do know it is a traditional to be a jump of approximately 10%. Here in Indiana, years and years ago, when gasoline retailed for between 79¢ and $1.29, the usual spike was 10¢. When gas was around $2.00, it was about 20¢ and ever since gas reached about $2.79, the spike has been 30¢. Now that we are almost $4.00 a gallon, the spike seems to be between 32¢ and 35¢. So it just figures. Again, I don’t know why 9% to 14% is the magic number, it just is.
Surprisingly the Daleville, Indiana area has only spiked during 3 of the last 6 statewide jumps. Muncie, Anderson and other surrounding locations all cranked up the prices some 20 to 30 cents on average with Daleville mostly idling by. As a matter of fact during this last spike this past Thursday or so, Daleville’s prices actually DROPPED 3 cents. Not sure the logic behind it, but I will continue to seek out the cheaper locations obviously.
I thought for sure when Greedway took over the Gas America on I-69 exit 234 that all hell would break loose for gas prices going through the roof, but it really hasn’t been that way so far. I loved it when a Marathon station in Anderson jacked it up to $3.95, but 10 miles away in Daleville prices dropped to $3.57.
A couple of observations… The really wild hikes often occur where the gas has dropped the most (i.e. the ‘low rent’ zones where prices are about 10-15c lower than the mid and high price zones. The super low price zone jumps are often 39c.
Mrs. Turbo made an interesting observation. We have seen a not even 10% rise in crude prices result in a near 25% rise at the pump. Yet people are idly watching the prices without complaining. In other countries raising the price of some key commodity or food item usually results in riots. Here, in a multi-state Speedway area we only see a handful of regulars read this site. I frequent some politically heated boards and it’s pretty quiet there on the gas topic.
If we are at $4 by March then one can only imagine what the summer price will be. And again, the victims of this are not directly the people who buy gas. As energy cuts into family budgets other things have to give, so it’s not the $100/month extra in a family, but where that $100 extra was going to be spent.
Something has to give here. If not, Big Oil is even more powerful than we can imagine.