Wednesday, October 23, 2013

That took even less time


It took less than 24 hours for my prediction in That didn't take long to come true.
This morning, all the neighborhood stations were selling regular at $3.35, so all of the increase of the past week has disappeared.  That was enough to get me to buy gas for my car, but not enough to get me to fill up.  I only bought six gallons, just over half a tank.  I still expect the price to drop more in the next week or two.
At 7:30 AM, the three stations down the street had lowered their prices to $3.29.  By 7:00 PM, the corner station had joined them.  Now, all the neighborhood stations are only two cents above where they were when the price fell off a ledge the first weekend of the month.

As for whether this trend will continue, the Gasbuddy widget over at Econobrowser shows that the national average price has passed $3.35 and is heading down to $3.34.  The Detroit average is chasing the national average downhill, only a fraction of a cent above it at halfway between $3.34 and $3.35, while Michigan's is paralleling Detroit's average, falling from $3.40 to $3.37 overnight, an even steeper drop than yesterday.

Also, I was agnostic yesterday about whether crude oil will support a continued decline in price.
As for how long this trend will continue, the crude oil indices are giving contradictory signals.  While Brent Crude has been generally going down, it went up today to close at $109.97.  On the other hand, WTI is at a three-month low of $99.60.  Stay tuned.
I am agnostic no longer.  Both Brent and WTI plunged today.  Econobrower shows that Brent fell $2.17 (2.01%) to $107.80, while OilPrice.net lists WTI as dropping $1.44 (1.49%) to $96.86.  Prices will continue to fall.

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