An Exercise

There have been a great many posts on oil and the possible impact of Y2K. As far as Y2K having a direct effect on oil, as far as I am concerned, the jury is still out.

This being said, I decided to use MY OWN, real-life first-hand data in an attempt to see what the price of oil was actually doing in MY situation.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I have been purchasing regular gasoline at the cheapest place in town (Costco). To obtain my "data," this afternoon I rummaged through my glove compartment, where I carelessly throw the receipts each time I purchase gasoline. The earliest receipt (last time I cleaned out the glove compartment) was November 12, 1999. The latest was today, February 23, 2000.

I entered the date and the price per gallon into Excel, sorted by date, and ran a line chart on the chart wizard. The picture before me was the price of gas fairly level between November, only slightly rising into mid January, then falling until the third week of January. From February 1 onward, the graph rises at an alarming rate.

Here is my raw data: Reg Date Price 11/12/99 $1.309 11/24/99 $1.289 12/3/99 $1.309 12/10/99 $1.299 12/15/99 $1.299 12/16/99 $1.319 12/22/99 $1.299 12/29/99 $1.309 12/30/99 $1.309 1/14/00 $1.319 1/19/00 $1.289 1/31/00 $1.309 2/12/00 $1.329 2/18/00 $1.359 2/23/00 $1.399

Sorry, but the chart would not paste into this message. Anyway, I encourage you to do this on your own.

In conclusion, the above exercise presented a graphic (no pun intended) on the price of gasoline. At this juncture, no one knows how this will all play out in the market, and the effect it will have on every part of our lives.

If you are a "polly" or otherwise interested in the price of gasoline, again, I would encourage you to go through your recent gasoline receipts, and note the increases.

Not Y2K related, you say - don't bet on it!!!!

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000

Answers

Here is a poorly-formated "graph" made from asterisks. Each asterisk equals a penny OVER $1.30, rounded to the nearest cent.

These are the last 4 gas purchases only: 1/31/00, 2/12/00, 2/18/00 and 2/23/00:

* (1/31/00

*** (2/12/00)

****** (2/18/00)

********** (2/23/00)

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

No Polly, this is known as a "bottomless graph" and is used to make something appear more significant than it really is. Good job.

Mark Twain, or somebody, said, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics". Congratulations for winning the third catagory.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), February 23, 2000.

Why not just look at the futures price of gasoline. Try

This is the price for 42,000 gallon contracts. Add state taxes, oil company markup, distributor markup, and dealer markup to get the price at the pump.

Your results may vary.

-- rocky (rknolls@no.spam), February 23, 2000.

close link

-- (-@-.-), February 23, 2000.

Thank you for your opening, so I can post info. from my space. Yesterday at Amoco, price for high test was 1.65, up I would say .23 from Dec. This a.m. Shell lists it at 1.68 (near Interstate). Yet, you go down the road ( 1/4 mile), and the price drops.) I have observed the big names (Shell, Amoco) are much higher priced than the unknown names. I always buy gas with my name brand credit card. I will, no longer. I hope the truckers have the same option. I hope they have an alternative, in order to put this beast back in its'place.

-- Name Brand (bed@mned.com), February 23, 2000.

No Polly, you have seen a 7% price increase. Here in Minneapolis I have seen the price go from $1.199 to $1.499. That's a 25% increase, 357% what you've seen. I guess it depnds on where you live.

-- JOHN (LITTMANNJ@AOL.COM), February 23, 2000.

Thanks, all for your responses.

Jumpoff Joe - I did not intend to deceive or make this appear more significant. I thought by explaining exactly what I did that people would be intelligent enough to reach their own conclusions. Mainly, though, I didn't want to type all of those asterisks.

I realize that prices fluctuate from one town to another. There is a city 30 miles up the road that is consistently 10 cents per gallon lower. This does not disregard my little comparison, since I purchased from the same station in the same town.

Also note, I did not mean to imply any particular signifiance to Y2K. Using actual figures seemed better than saying, "gee, seems like gas has gone up."

Maybe I just had too much time on my hands yesterday....

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), February 24, 2000.