I'm kind of amazed how quickly gas prices responded to the war.

[Sogo]

Gas up $.10 this morning in small town Iowa. It may have been earlier than today; I haven't been by my gas station since mid-last week.

[HappyH]

1. Up a nickel this morning in my part of WNC.

I had to haul some trash away this morning, topped up the Subaru while I was out.

[beveeheart]

2. Up $0.60 in my neck of the woods

- Colorado - in the past week. Half of that over the weekend.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Tuesday is the day the gas truck comes to my little town and replenishes our gas stations.

It is also the day the gas prices change. We'll find out tomorrow how it goes.

I recall on 9/11 the prices on a couple of stations nearby quadrupled their prices by noon. Those stations quickly went out of business. The local owners were vilified. Customers were pissed and never forgot, boycotting those stations even after they dropped their prices.

[durablend]

4. Sheetz jacked theirs up late last night

Wasted no time

[unblock]

5. this is actually quite standard. economists have studied gas station prices extensively.

they call them "upward sticky" or "upwardly sticky" because they tend to jump up very quickly but take a long time to come back down.

the up quickly part is easy to explain. gas station managers can easily track oil and gas spot market prices in real time and when there's a spike, they can easily anticipate that the next gas shipment will be more expensive, and also that all their local competition will face the same price hike, so they can all jack up prices quickly knowing that the competition can't underprice them for very long if at all.

the real fun happens when the crisis is resolved and oil/gas spot market prices come back down. gas stations aren't in a hurry to lower prices because they make a ton of extra profit by keeping prices high while their own costs have already come back down. so what develops is a fragile "implicit trust" among local competing gas stations. they all benefit if they all keep prices high.

but the temptation to undercut the competition eventually causes someone to break the implicit trust, or maybe they just want to empty their own tanks ahead of a fresh delivery. and once someone lowers prices, they all do, even if its just inch by inch. eventually prices come back down, but it's a wait and see game on the way down instead of a quick and obvious lurch on the way up.

[Endlessmike56]

6. I live in the Pittsburgh area

I bought gas last Friday for $2.98 a gallon. Went past same place about 15 minutes ago and it’s up to $3.25

[2naSalit]

7. I had to get groceries yesterday...

And the gas station between my place and the store was at its same price it was last week so I topped off my tank, needed to anyway since we went back in the deep freeze last night and the gauge in my vehicle was stuck so I was looking to fix that too, it took more than I expected. I think it froze earlier last week.

[tanyev]

8. Drove by a Costco a couple hours ago and the gas pumps were jumpin'.

I don’t drive that way very often, but I’m going to assume they’re not usually that busy early afternoon on a weekday.

[Sogo]

9. Yes, top your tank off before it goes up even more!

nt