Posts Tagged
‘Gasoline’
by phil - May 19th, 2014 8:32 am
These are not good chart patterns:
We haven't gone anywhere on the Dow, S&P or NYSE since early March and we've lost 6% on the Nasdaq and 8.3% on the Russell yet, to hear the mainstream media tell it – there's no better time to invest.
Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Clearly that's the template being used today by the MSM and even our politicians these days.
President Bush himself said: "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." Unfortunately, no one told him he wasn't supposed to actually repeat what they told him in the strategy meeting to the general public – but we all know that's the way things work, don't we?
As you can see from Dave Fry's SPY chart, we got a very exciting pop into the close on Friday for no particular reason and now, for no particular reason the Futures have given back most of those gains. But don't worry, into the open, while the volume is still low, it's sure to get jammed back up again – just in time for the Funds to dump their shares on the retail crowd.
We don't care IF the game is rigged, as long as we can figure out HOW the game is rigged and play along. This morning I posted to our Members that Silver Futures (/SI ) were a long at $19.50 and that Gasoline Futures (/RB) were a short at $3. Already silver hit $19.65 for a $750 per contract gain and gasoline fell to $2.985 for a $630 per contract gain – and the Egg McMuffins are paid for!
We KNOW it's rigged and we KNOW the moves were fake so, when they hit good resistance points, we knew it was very unlikely they'd get past them. If they did get over the resistance, we'd take small, quick losses and be done with the trade. Of course we went over the news and the data from around the World to…
Tags: Futures Trading, Gasoline, Health Care, Hedge Funds, Housing, Propaganda, silver
Posted in Appears on main page, Immediately available to public | Join Member's Chat - 119 Comments Here »
by ilene - July 14th, 2010 4:50 pm
Courtesy of Mish
Today the Census Bureau posted its Advance Monthly Retail Sales and Food Services Report for June 2010.
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $360.2 billion, a decrease of 0.5 percent from the previous month, but 4.8 percent above June 2009.
Total sales for the April through June 2010 period were up 6.8 percent from the same period a year ago. The April to May 2010 percent change was revised from -1.2 percent to -1.1 percent.
Retail trade sales were down 0.6 percent from May 2010, but 5.0 percent above last year. Nonstore retailers sales were up 12.1 percent from June 2009 and gasoline stations sales were up 8.8 percent from last year.
Hogwash
The only believable number in the report is gasoline sales. Otherwise the problem is in Census Bureau methodology.
The advance estimates are based on a subsample of the Census Bureau’s full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is used to select approximately 5,000 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of over three million retail and food services firms. Responding firms account for approximately 65% of the MARTS dollar volume estimate.
The methodology misses stores that went out of business and have no retail sales. Circuit City is a prime example but also note that thousands of small strip mall stores are now shuttered as well. Some of that volume went to the surveyed stores making it appear sales went up.
The only accurate way of computing retail sales is to look at state sales tax data. Even then, tax data can be misleading because one needs to factor in changes in tax policy, notably states increasing sales tax rates.
For example, a rise in the sales tax rate from 7% to 8% would result in a 14% increase in sales tax collections (all other things being equal).
The Rockefeller Institute reports "The growth in state tax revenues is not an indication of broad state fiscal recovery, but is mostly driven by legislated changes [massive tax increases] in two states — California and New York."
Please see Rockefeller…
Tags: businesses, Census Bureau, fictional nonsense, gas stations, Gasoline, Mish, online sales, retail sales
Posted in Phil's Favorites | No Comments »
by ilene - January 14th, 2010 1:46 pm
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
Interesting report….
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $353.0 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, but 5.4 percent (±0.5%) above December 2008. Total sales for the 12 months of 2009 were down 6.2 percent (±0.2%) from 2008. Total sales for the October through December 2009 period were up 1.9 percent (±0.3%) from the same period a year ago.
Now remember, Census has some funny methodology in that they don’t count sales unless both the prior and current month is returned by the same store. This means they overstate sales during declines in the economy, and understate them during expansions.
Looking inside the report we see a number of surprises in the year-over-year numbers.
Electronics were down – so much for the so-called "strong Christmas sales" in that category that everyone on ToutTV has been crowing about.
Food and beverage purchases were up – price inflation?
Gasoline was up huge, accounting for a huge percentage of the year/over/year increase all on its own. Gee, that happens when the gas price goes up a lot, right?
Indeed, while there were positive changes in other categories (online was up 10%, as just one example) gasoline sales increased in dollar volume by thirty-four percent and accounted for a stunning $8.7 billion of the total $17.9 billion increase – roughly half.
What’s there to like in here? I say "little or nothing" – gas sale increases are not positive, they’re negative as most gasoline demand is inelastic (you need it to get to work) as is food.
The bright lights, such as they were, had clothing up 5% and general merchandise up 2%, both annualized.
Rather uninspiring when one considers that the inelastic components were the big movers on the positive side and that’s not good for discretionary spending capacity.
Tags: Economy, electronics, Gasoline, retail sales
Posted in Phil's Favorites | No Comments »
by ilene - December 16th, 2009 2:14 pm
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
From the Bullcrap Lie Society (BLS) of our government this morning:
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.4 percent in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months the index increased 1.8 percent before seasonal adjustment, the first positive 12-month change since February 2009.
Most of the change was due to energy; gasoline was up sharply (as we saw yesterday in the PPI.)
Core was a literal zero.
Food was up a bit, but I continued to be puzzled by the difference between gasoline and "fuel oil."
Why? Because "fuel oil" (that is, heating oil) is exactly the same thing as #2 diesel – that is, road diesel fuel. The only difference is the tax (and the presence of dye in the heating oil to denote that the tax has not been paid.) But for the legal (tax) issues you can run "heating oil" in your diesel car or truck, and vice-versa – they are identical products.
Used vehicles were also up materially – a reflection of the distortion from "cash for clunkers" still present in the data (it hit its maximum in October at +3.4%) Prices for new vehicles were also up (again, the maximum was in October) – again denoting the "back-door" bailout of the automakers from cash-for-clunkers. Unlike the new vehicle deal however, which you got a tax credit for, the buyer of a used car just got plain old-fashioned screwed through price-jacking caused by constraints in supply. (Just wait though – in the new year when people can’t make the payments on those CFC deals, you’ll see what happens to used car prices…. supply and demand you know.. 
)
Medical care was up as usual (gee, how come it keeps rising faster than overall inflation?) and shelter costs were down (remember, this is not "housing", as that would expose reality – it is "owners equivalent rent")
All in all a blah report – but given the PPI that’s expected – the fun and games in the CPI report resulting from yesterday’s PPI should show up in a month or two.
Tags: consumer price index, CPI report, Energy, fuel oil, Gasoline, Oil, PPI
Posted in Phil's Favorites | No Comments »
by ilene - December 5th, 2009 6:26 pm
By Gail the Actuary, at The Oil Drum, and via Clusterstock
(This guest post originally appeared on The Oil Drum and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License)
In the past several weeks, we have seen many reports such as this:
Colonial Pipeline Limits Gasoline Supply Shipments for Cycle 70
Colonial Pipeline Co., which operates the largest pipeline linking U.S. Gulf Coast refiners and East Coast markets, will limit shipments of gasoline because orders exceed the company’s ability to deliver fuel on time.
The Alpharetta, Georgia-based company issued the requirement, known as an allocation, in a bulletin to shippers for the 70th cycle. The restriction applies to shipments on Colonial pipelines north of Collins, Mississippi.
Companies will be able to ship a pro-rated portion of their original nomination, based on their shipping history over the past year, according to Colonial.
With the assistance of Jane Van Ryan at API, I contacted to Steve Baker at Colonial Pipeline, to find out what is happening. I discovered the oversubscription seems to be related to refinery shutdowns in the Northeast.
Many of you will remember that Colonial Pipeline is the big pipeline that carries finished oil products from the Gulf Coast up to the Northeast part of the United States.
Map showing route of Colonial Pipeline
I live in the Atlanta area, so I remember when there have been gasoline disruptions because of inadequate supply. This has happened twice: once following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and again in September 2008, following two gulf hurricanes.
When I inquired, I found out that there are really two parallel pipelines. One carries only gasoline products; the other carries distillate products. The line that is running short of capacity is the gasoline pipeline. (If only one is running short of capacity, it is not too surprising that it is the gasoline line. Distillate products like diesel fuel are now in very abundant supply; gasoline is at closer to normal levels.)
When I asked why demand was so high for gasoline pipeline capacity, one of the reasons mentioned was that shutdowns in refinery capacity in the
…
Tags: Commodities, Energy, Gasoline, Oil, oil refinery, original, supply disruption
Posted in Phil's Favorites | No Comments »
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.