What's the "future" for price at the pump?

RBOB Gasoline” is trading at the equivalent of around $1.64 per gallon.  As shown in the following graph, this represents a price drop of roughly 85-90 cents per gallon since September: RBOB Gasoline AAA reports that today’s national average is $2.639 and could fall to $2.50 within the next couple of weeks.  Nationally, the average markup from the near term futures contract price to prices at the pump has averaged 62 cents per gallon since January 2000 (which is when AAA began tracking this information).  Therefore, if futures prices hold at (or fall further from) current levels it seems quite likely that the price at the pump may be headed even lower.]]>

What’s the “future” for price at the pump?

Lately, futures prices for crude oil and refined products such as gasoline and heating oil have been in a free-fall.  For example, the January 2015 futures contract for “RBOB Gasoline” is trading at the equivalent of around $1.64 per gallon.  As shown in the following graph, this represents a price drop of roughly 85-90 cents per gallon since September:

RBOB Gasoline

AAA reports that today’s national average is $2.639 and could fall to $2.50 within the next couple of weeks.  Nationally, the average markup from the near term futures contract price to prices at the pump has averaged 62 cents per gallon since January 2000 (which is when AAA began tracking this information).  Therefore, if futures prices hold at (or fall further from) current levels it seems quite likely that the price at the pump may be headed even lower.

Terrorism risk insurance

Clearly insurance is an enabling technology; without insurance many if not most large-scale commercial activities would grind to a halt. In a Business Week article entitled “The Unexpected Threat to Super Bowl XLIX“, Wharton professors Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan point out that that if Congress decides not to renew the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) (set to expire on Dec. 31), there is a chance that the Super Bowl might not be played. Will Warren Buffet step in as an insurer of last resort if TRIA is not reauthorized?  Also, Gordon Woo raises some excellent points about possible private sector alternatives to TRIA in his blog posting entitled “RMS and the FIFA World Cup: Insuring Against Terrorism“.