Wednesday, February 26, 2014, 6:30PM: Although I am still perplexed about what happened last week, I have some clarity about what will happen tomorrow. Last Thursday, on Grand Rapids Gas Buddy, there were postings of several stations at a new price of $3.65. Then, a few hours later, those postings were gone. Instead, on Saturday morning, we got our third Saturday hike in a row, and of course the new price was … $3.65. Retail prices have been following higher wholesale prices, which we usually see in February, particularly in regions influenced by Chicago. Well, we have a new high for 2014 in wholesale prices tonight, and I calculate the cost to retailers to be $3.59 a gallon. Since prices in and near Grand Rapids are in the $3.44-$3.65 range, we are looking at price hike on Thursday. Estimated new price: $3.75. –Ed A.
Ohio is spiking to 3.659, with Speedway leading the charge. Sad – I filled up for 3.24 this morning.
Speedway will continue their pricing practices, as long as the unwashed masses care more about their high-fructose corn syrup frozen treats than anything else.
3.75 Kalamazoo
Looks like all Grand Rapids greedways are $3.759
$3.65 In Fort Wayne, leading the way is Speedway. Not yet caught on across the board, but by 4:00 PM it will be.
Speedway spike under way, $3.69 in South Bend now. Niles, MI $3.75. SBN Admiral down to $3.46 for now.
I wonder what day in March we’ll crack $4 dollars a gallon? Ripoff central!
I hate paying such high prices, but how is it a rip-off? The numbers are all available on this web site. It would be foolish and self-destructive for anybody to persistently sell this product at a loss. If it’s not worth the price paid, then one shouldn’t pay the price.
I suppose the taxes could be considered a rip-off, but that’s a pretty static quantity in most places.
GREEDway sent the memo out for $3.65 in Cincinnati this morning. Gas was $3.00 at the beginning of the month. That is a 21% increase in four weeks. I sure hope my upcoming pay raise is this percentage.
Cincinnati’s average was actually $3.22 at the beginning of the month, and it’s $3.49 today.
http://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=1&Areas=Cincy,,&Unit=US%20$/G
I guess you’ll have to copy and paste that entire URL to see the chart.
All I can say Ren is 14 more years to retirement! The Greedways will then be just a distant memory as it’s off to the tropics.
The Rip-Off does not have to exist at the pump in order to get Ripped Off. The extreme variations in pricing week to week when no other states have this issue is maddening enough. Not only does Indiana vary more than any other state, Fort Wayne has to be more expensive (by 5 or more cents) than the average Indiana price. As for a 21% pay boost, I don’t think so. I am lucky to work for a large mobile carrier and get an extra $1+ an hour. My raise for one day, after taxes, will not pay for the difference between before and after a price hike for my two cars. So keep watching. If you consider saving $3-ish per fill up if you do it the day before a hike, and you fill once a week per vehicle, it is quite worth your time to do so by the end of a year of this madness. $150(ish) per vehicle per year?
My only wish is that when they keep pushing and hit the tipping point that the economy takes a dump I hope it’s deep enough to take them out too. Won’t happen but I can wish…
Timm, you’re still missing something. If you smooth out Indiana’s variations, the average price falls pretty much in line with the US average. That means every cycle has a trough during which time our average price is BELOW the US average. Most of you are so upset about the spikes that you miss or ignore the benefits of the troughs!
I don’t know why the Midwest is so different from everybody else, but at least we have a weekly troughs that other states don’t get. If you want to stick it to Speedway or anybody else, just keep buying at the bottom of the cycle when they get little or no profit — and stay out of their stores!
That seems like such a better solution than always complaining to a few dozen people at a time.
And here’s an illustration of what I’m talking about (and you’ll probably have to copy/paste the whole URL):
http://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=6&Areas=Indiana,USA%20Average,&Unit=US%20$/G
I don’t understand why the Indiana line is so much more intolerable than the USA line. At least our price dips below the USA average during almost every cycle. I’m not suggesting that we bow down in thanks to Speedway, but if we complain about the peaks, we should at least be equally grateful that there are so many troughs.
Ren, what you say is true but if you back it up to January 29 the average price in Cincinnati was $3.02. My friend in the ‘nati might have fudged the date a little but using your current average, which is bound to increase a bunch just today, and my low point of $3.02 it is still almost a 16% boost in price. Only Homer Bailey and the CEO of Goldman-Sachs would turn up their nose at such a pay increase. Consumer confidence will never be robust, not when these kinds of fluctuations are occuring.
Ren and all: You might find this interesting as it pertains to the gas price ups-and-downs in the Midwest:
http://www.thegasgame.com/2012/01/17/economists-have-caught-up-to-the-gas-game/
Becky, the average price in Cincinnati was $3.14 on 1/29, and that was a steal compared to the USA average of $3.27. Today’s price is more in line with the US average (only a 6-cent difference).
Prices are increasing in most of the country — we just do it in a goofy way in the Midwest.
Thanks, Ed. The second paper in that link contains quite an interesting quote that many people will be shocked to hear (but not me):
“We examine prices in cycling and non-cycling cites controlling for other factors and find consumers are no worse off, and likely better off, on average, in cycling than non-cycling cities.”
That’s precisely the point that I have been trying to make. It’s good to see it supported academically.
Ren, I am sure he was referring to prices in his area of Cincy being $3 at one time. I say that because they were as low as 2.89 in my area earlier in the month. Now they sit at 3.659.
Chris, the data area available for anybody to look up at cincygasprices.com.
The lowest recent average in Cincy was $3.04 in mid-November, and $3.05 in mid-December.
I’m sure there were stations below $3 at that time (as there were here in Indy). But the AVERAGE hasn’t below $3 since early 2011.
The average is a much more useful number to use. When we compare individual stations with the best bargains before spikes to the stations with the highest prices after the spikes, it tends to overdramatize the magnitude of the spike. The spikes are tough enough to deal that I don’t think we need to exaggerate them with selective data.
I’ve been setting on a 40 cent Kroger discount for 2-3 weeks and it expires tomorrow. I wasn’t really anticipating a 60-70 cent run in gas prices over the last few weeks, and I certainly wasn’t anticipating 3.75 today.
Comparing one region to the national average is of little use. Different regions have different wholesale/spot prices. It’s comparing apples to oranges. We should compare a state in our region/PADD that doesn’t have a strong Speedway presence to one that DOES, and look at pricing that way.
Actually, it’s quite useful for comparing the trends. I know there’s variability from region to region, but long-term trends average out the local variability.
If the Midwest increased over the course of 1+ years at a faster pace than everybody else, that would be a cause for concern.
But that’s not happening. Half the time, the Midwest is higher than the national average, and half the time we’re lower than the national average — but the smoothed-out trend always goes up and down with the national average, within a few cents either way. We savvy consumers in the Midwest are lucky enough to have frequent troughs — but only because of strong competition and web sites like this.
Imagine that a type of shirt you like has a MSRP of $40, and most stores sell it for exactly that price all the time.
Now imagine that the store closest to you normally sells that shirt for $50. However, every other week they put it on sale for $30.
Do you get mad that the cost of the shirt increases $20 at the end of the sale? Or do you feel happy that you can easily track the price of the shirt and buy it $10 cheaper than everybody else?
The latter seems a lot more reasonable to me.
Ren, you conveniently ignore (or perhaps just gave away the store) the fact that people do not want to have to plan when to fill up because of the whims of some faceless exec at the Speedway Tower. The only benefit that they have is to cause everyone to rush to the store at ‘random’ times, but I don’t think so.
Let’s face it, there is a profit-related reason they do it, and the argument that half the time we’re below the average does not pass the smell test. North Carolina has similar gas taxes with us and if we compare their chart with ours you will see that out of the 30 time periods in the yearly chart Indiana was below the NC average maybe 10 times by trivial amounts and above the NC average around 20 times, often by substantial amounts. So our average price on any given week was HIGHER, often quite a bit higher, 2 of 3 weeks.
http://www.IndyGasPrices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx?city1=Indiana&city2=NorthCarolina&city3=&crude=n&tme=12&units=us
Repeat for 24 months, same two places, and it’s the same deal. 21 of the 30 time periods we’re ABOVE, only 9 of 30 time periods we’re below.
Repeat for 36 months and it’s 11 time periods below, and 19 above.
The charts also indicate several gratuitous spikes likely ’caused’ by local disruptions, chipmunks, etc. which apparently do not impact NC supply, only ours. I’ve been to NC a few times and their squirrels and chipmunks were well fed, maybe ours are scrawny and eat power cables?
Lots of things to point out in that post, but in the interest of time, I’ll start with the first two errors.
First, price spikes are not the result of a “whim,” and there’s nothing “random” about it. This web site proves it. The fact that Ed knows almost every time that it’s going to happen, based on math that has a lot of parts but isn’t very complex, proves that there are reasons for spikes.
Second, of course profit is involved, and thank goodness for that. It’s essential to free markets that all sides benefit from the transaction. You get a product that makes your life much easier to live, and they get credit for developing and providing that product to you.
Lastly, are you really trying to suggest that there aren’t significant variables in the supply chain that differentiate NC and IND?
And why would somebody need to “face it” that commerce is driven by profit? It’s terrifying the way the p-word has become such a pejorative these days. If profit is such a repulsive idea, maybe you can start a not-for-profit oil or retail gas corporation. Let me know how that works out for you.
You know, REN, I do get it, I have been getting it since the 1970’s when Checker and Bonded were driving the 12¢ spikes. Too bad you didn’t catch that I was trying to explain the frustration that so many here feel. We all understand it, but we are all TIRED OF IT. Not everybody can spare the time to watch EVERYTHING EVERY DAY and still be gainfully employed as well as take care of sick family members, shop, pay medical bills, raise a family, and pay the CPA for doing your taxes with such a suffocating code. Since the 1970’s I have only had to purchase gasoline at the spike price only ONCE — EVER. Long before this site or Gas Buddy was a dream, I was guessing with 99.5% accuracy when the spike would hit. Yes it can be done, Yes, you can save $$. And people do. We do it on the backs of the people that don’t care about the price and pay it anyway. If the stations were all vacant for three days after a spike, there would never be a spike. Furthermore, we all know there is a reason that it happens here, but assuredly, we would love to know and understand exactly what the reason is and how it works to benefit the perpetrators.
But it works to OUR benefit too. It seems like some are willing to pay MORE for increased stability. And we WILL be paying more if prices become more stable, because we’ll lose that opportunity to buy during the troughs.
People can pay more if they want, by simply not paying attention and filling up whenever they need it. And by making that choice, they wouldn’t rob me of the opportunity to buy low.
And I reject the notion that you must “spare the time to watch EVERYTHING EVERY DAY” to play the game. I spend only a couple minutes a day looking at the numbers. Loading The Gas Game and checking for GasBuddy emails takes a VERY small amount of time and virtually no sacrifice at all.
Ren, did you not get how I was saying in my first post how much money CAN BE SAVED by watching the pricing? Did you not read how I was saying the stations were not ripping people off? Did you not get that I was not saying we have to make time to do the research? I was saying this is just one more damn thing to think about when a lot of US have lots of things to think about other than wanting to think about this stuff.cstr sap The only thing negative I ever said is that it would be nice to not have to think about this at all. And this chart shows that just 3 weeks out of 3 months, one in my location could beat the AVERAGE price in the US.
http://www.FtWayneGasPrices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx?city1=USA Average&city2=Indiana&city3=FtWayne&crude=n&tme=3&units=us
I would prefer no spike/low cycles. I do not feel the cycles have benefit.
I check here daily and it only takes a few seconds (unless I get drawn into the comments).
Sometimes I check before a prediction post/comment is made so I miss the spike and loose at the gasgame.
Making a special pre-spike trip to the gas station $2 savings on a fill up does not actually save anything …another loose.
Also, buying pre-spike gas when my tank is not low ads extra weight which decreases mpg and takes away from the win.
The cycles benefit *if* we buy gas when: driving by a gas station, with a low tank, at a cycle trough that is lower than the average.
It *does* take time and effort to have those align often enough to be a win.
I didn’t say anything contrary to what you said in that post. I was referring to “some” and “people,” not you specifically.
So, to answer your questions, yes, I did.
My last post was for Timm.
I prefer having these price cycles. I always buy before a spike when stations are making little to no profit. As for the time to research for when they are to spike, I’m a little confused. We have websites like this that warn us! It takes 5 minutes out of my daily schedule to look for this information. This is coming from someone who is a full time college student and works 40+ hours at my job. If I can find 5 minutes, I’m sure others can!!! I only buy when they are during that low period. I wouldn’t get that advantage if I lived somewhere else in the country.
So if we don’t want stations selling at peaks and troughs, should we tell grocery stores to not have big sales and only sell at one stable price that only changes at small intervals? You buy when the price is low and don’t when it’s high. A smart consumer can benefit.
As for profit, stations are SUPPOSE to make profit. They would be stupid not to. If they want to make 30 cents profit, go ahead. We, as a consumer, have the choice to not shop there. That’s why there is competition. If every station is making all that profit (which is rarely the case), then just don’t buy. They will have to lower their price eventually since they would have so much supply.
Looking at this past month, stations have been going up frequently. But they haven’t been making much profit at all. Why? Because local markets have been soaring!!!!! Stations have no choice but to go up. Otherwise they are losing money. You cannot operate a business in the red.
As for Speedway. I do not shop at their stores or buy gas from them. Unless they are the cheapest. And actually for the past month, in Michigan City, Indiana, Speedway has NOT been leading spikes in my town. Family Express has been leading the spikes. Typically they start the spike during the night and Speedway and the rest of the stations follow the next day. Does that make Family Express a Greed Express? No! They were losing money and couldn’t wait for Speedway to go up. Do I still shop at Family Express? When they have the lowest gas price.
As for GREEDWAY, do they sometimes rip of customers? Yes there are times when there wasn’t a need for a spike. There may be individual cases when a few GREEDWAY’s do rip of customers regularly. But at a state level and during most times, they have to raise their prices to stay in business and make a profit.
That’s my opinion.
That’s a great post, Justin.
I want to point out that I also don’t buy anything from Speedway. I’ve been called an “apologist” for them, but really I don’t care about them either way. They’re just trying to make money, and they have ZERO power to force people to give money to them, or to raise prices at other stations. They’re competing for our dollars just like everybody else. If their actions are bad for business, they’ll suffer the consequences.
This spike doesn’t seem to be holding–the Greedway at my corner went from $3.659 to $3.549 this morning.
The two BP stations on the Indiana Toll Road just west of Elkhart amazingly did not spike. Still holding steady at $3.49. Probably some of the cheapest gas north of Indy.
The Georgetown Rickers BP in nw indy was 3.43 this morning. I filled up as I was right there and figured to see gas prices fall a bit, but I see the price there is back up to 3.55 and it didn’t drop anywhere else. Any clue what causes these weird anti-spikes that get reverted quickly?
WTI Crude is up over $2 dollars a barrel today due to the situation in Ukraine. I guess we must get a ton of oil from them lol. Anyhoo, I’m sure Chicago Spot will follow and we’ll see another .25 cent spike this week
We’ll see another spike this week. Could be tomorrow, if Speedway is feelin’ froggy.
Don’t they feel froggy everyday Chris LOL. I smell $4+ gas coming to the Cincinnati area this month…probably everywhere else for that matter. I’m working in Detroit currently and saw $3.75 this morning, yikes. I thought we had it bad in Indiana. Hope ya have lots of Kroger points to cash in!
@Chris: No, we probably don’t get any oil from Ukraine, but people who do will have to get it from somewhere else. And people who get their oil from that somewhere else will have to get it from somewhere else — and so on.
So the US might have to increase its exports to shore up supply around the world — leading to smaller supplies here.
It’s a complex system, for sure.
That’s one of the problems with oil being a global commodity. Everything, anywhere in the world affects it. I’m betting on $3.799 in Ohio for this week’s spike. $4 is certainly possible by Easter. Hell, $4 is possible in 2-3 weeks at his rate.
Not that we should be used to it or think it’s a bargain, but $4 is pretty normal at some point in spring the last few years.
You can thank the government for that, as the switchover to summer blends increases the price of gas in several ways. The end product requires different ingredients; the number of different formulas means that refiners have to specialize; and the refineries schedule maintenance at a time when they have to shut down for reformulation anyway.
Everybody together now: Thanks, Government!
Someone must have missed a smiley face in the Ukraine situation causing prices to rise, they produce LESS oil than Japan…
I understand the value of buying at the low, really.
Grocery stores and retail stores offering sale prices on selected items is not equal to gasoline price cycles.
Grocery/retail stores advertise when sales start and end.
At grocery/retail stores we have choices. i.e. – buy brand A cereal that is on sale or brand B cereal that is not; but we still get cereal …or not get cereal and just eat something different.
Gas is gas, choice is drive or not drive.
I bought gas Tuesday; not because I needed gas but because I would not be driving again until Friday; and there is possibility for spike this week.
Buying early was a small gamble because a spike could be Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat or not at all. Nobody knows.
I paid $3.65 which was lowest on my route that day. At least one station on my normal route is down to $3.63 today (Wed).
So far I missed the low by 2 cents. I am ok with that because a special trip to just buy gas today would negate the ~25 cent overall savings.
Friday prices will tell if it was good or not to have bought early.
I dislike spending the energy to worry about it. I do not worry about it at the grocery store because they tell me what is on sale, when it starts and when it ends.
I am thankful for thegasgame site and for the contributors; it all helps.
Ohio is resetting to 3.699. Not much of a spike….
Grand Rapids is going 3.79
Today Speedway spikes to $3.75 in South Bend. $3.79 Niles, MI.