Gas prices just fell for a sixth straight week. Thanksgiving drivers are still on track to pay more than ever.
Regular gas averaged $4.01 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s down about 10% from its latest peak of nearly $4.48 in late September, based on US Energy Information Administration data.
Wholesale prices have fallen more than twice as fast. Gasoline futures (RB=F) slid about 25% from Sept. 18 through the Nov. 9 close, their lowest finish since March 10, as oil (CL=F) dropped about 23% from its April high.
Pump prices have typically run about $1 a gallon above futures. Based on the Nov. 9 close, that points to about $3.65 a gallon, or roughly 35 more cents of relief, by Yahoo Finance calculations.
“That’ll be a 3-handle by mid-next week,” market analyst Mike Zaccardi posted on X on Nov. 6, when the average stood at $4.07.
Even that would only tie a record. The highest Thanksgiving-week average in EIA data going back to 1990 is $3.65, set in 2022. The latest weekly reading, for the week of Nov. 2, was $4.15.
Adjusted for inflation, though, this year’s $4.50 peak in May comes to about $4.53 in current dollars, far below 2022’s $5.71 and 2008’s $6.33, by Yahoo Finance calculations.
The slide picked up speed in the week of the Nov. 3 midterms, when pump prices fell 12 cents, the most since June. ING economist James Smith doesn’t expect the election to change much.
“Sure, gasoline prices mattered enormously to US voters, and politicians have been surprisingly frank about that,” Smith wrote in a Nov. 6 note. “But if diplomacy could not deliver a solution before the elections, why should it suddenly do so now the political clock has reset for two years?”
Diesel is a different story.
The fuel that moves goods by truck and rail hit a record $6.53 a gallon in the week of Sept. 21 and was still about $6.17 on Nov. 9, according to AAA. US stockpiles fell below 100 million barrels in late October, the lowest since 2003, the EIA said.
Those costs are showing up across corporate America. S&P 500 companies mentioned “inflation” or “inflationary” 820 times on October earnings calls, the most since February 2024, Bloomberg reported, as fuel, fertilizer and plastic resin got pricier.
The open question, Chris Versace of TheStreet Pro wrote Monday, is “the length of time to bring supply levels back to normal. That will help dictate how quickly inflation pressures fade, and with it margin relief for companies.”
The EIA’s next weekly reading is due Monday evening; October Consumer Price Index data follows Tuesday, and the Thanksgiving-week reading comes Nov. 23.
Source: finance.yahoo.com
