Use Gas and Oil Commodity Futures Prices to Predict Pump Prices
You can follow oil and gas commodity futures prices to help predict the price of gasoline at the pumps.
This works especially well for the short term, over a long term there are many supply and demand factors that make the prices hard to predict.
The futures prices for gas are easy to obtain on the internet or there are many newspapers that list commodity future prices.
www.Ino.com will give you the daily prices on oil futures and unleaded gasoline on the New York Mercantile Exchange where energy futures contracts are traded.
From their home page click on [Energy] in the center of the page and it will take you to a page that has both oil and gas commodity futures markets.
The prices at the pump will lag the commodity prices by a few days, a little longer in California because they have that "special gasoline" that is different from gas the rest of the country uses.
Most stations where you buy gas will update their prices when they get a new supply of gasoline in, so a lot of times they only change their price once or twice a week.
By following the futures prices of gasoline and oil you can time your purchases at the pump so that you will end up paying less for your gasoline.
I usually start checking prices when I get to about half a tank, if the futures are making a big up move then I rush to a gas station and make sure my tank is full. When the futures prices are dropping then I wait until I am on empty and then fill up with some cheaper gas.
This works especially well for the short term, over a long term there are many supply and demand factors that make the prices hard to predict.
The futures prices for gas are easy to obtain on the internet or there are many newspapers that list commodity future prices.
www.Ino.com will give you the daily prices on oil futures and unleaded gasoline on the New York Mercantile Exchange where energy futures contracts are traded.
From their home page click on [Energy] in the center of the page and it will take you to a page that has both oil and gas commodity futures markets.
The prices at the pump will lag the commodity prices by a few days, a little longer in California because they have that "special gasoline" that is different from gas the rest of the country uses.
Most stations where you buy gas will update their prices when they get a new supply of gasoline in, so a lot of times they only change their price once or twice a week.
By following the futures prices of gasoline and oil you can time your purchases at the pump so that you will end up paying less for your gasoline.
I usually start checking prices when I get to about half a tank, if the futures are making a big up move then I rush to a gas station and make sure my tank is full. When the futures prices are dropping then I wait until I am on empty and then fill up with some cheaper gas.
