If you said UP, you're 100% right!
Is it Bush?
Is it the Democratic Congress?
Nope, it's neither, as it turns out, this coming Thursday (March 1st) marks the switch-over to the more expensive "summer blend." Gasoline prices in the metro area are expected to soar to near $3/gallon well before sumer!
Hey! HEY!! It's not all gloom and doom. In fact, it's long been a boon to Wall Street. As Paul Tharp of the NY Post writes, "Gasoline's rite of spring also gives Wall Street traders their most dependable and predictable profit rally of the year, often in the double digits, analysts say."
A week before the switch, this past Thursday, February 22nd, unleaded regular futures shot up a bold 2.9%
Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said, "Basically it's "Hear we go again,' " adding that many traders have used this strategy based on the summer switch - buy contracts on March 1st and sell half by May 1st and the other half by May 15th. Beutel claims, "It's consistently yielded profits for 19 of the last 22 years."
Last year that strategy produced a 39% trading profit on gasoline and over the past twenty years, it's paid an average of $77,107 per contract.
Still, the bad news, for consumers, is that gasoline prices are expected to rise from their 2/22/07 lows of $2.48/gallon (NY) & $2.13/gallon (NJ) by around 45 cents/gallon by EARLY spring!
Hey It's spring! Time to bend over and open up your wallets!!!
This is gonna hurt a little bit.
