What happened was, the end-user price of the refined product reflected its raw material's rise above $80 in the middle of the three-week period, but has not yet been translated to what oil did last [image-nocss] week.
Since there aren't any gasoline supply or demand developments that are giving gasoline prices "legs" on their own to really separate them from crude, with plenty of stocks and refining capacity facing lackluster demand, gasoline is even more free than usual to just follow oil's bouncing ball.
In the next few days, retail gasoline will likely lose those 4 cents it gained, or even more, because crude dropped back to a more typical $75.
Crude and retail gasoline remain rather range-bound, approximately $72 to $79 and $2.72 to $2.80, respectively, with supply flush and demand meager. Gasoline demand growth is zip so far this year, painting a negative portrait of the overall economy since demand is chiefly employment driven.
Average retail margin is temporarily plump thanks to lag time in the price/distribution system, but will probably slim by a few cents fairly soon. All but one-sixth of markets have double-digit margins, some of them stellar for now.
Lundberg's daily wholesale price surveys show that U.S. average direct DTW, jobber-priced DTW and racks both branded and unbranded are back approximately to their levels of early July. Soon, retail price and retail margin will be too, absent any unusual glitch in supply or perceived supply.
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