Thanksgiving gas prices, Digi Mart USA News (United States): Gas prices fell for a sixth straight week, but Thanksgiving drivers are still on track to pay more than ever.
Regular gas averaged $4.01 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That is down about 10% from its latest peak of nearly $4.48 in late September, based on U.S.
Energy Information Administration data.
Wholesale prices have fallen about twice as fast. Gasoline futures slid about 21% from Sept. 18 through Friday’s close, as oil dropped about 20% from its April high.
Pump prices have typically run about $1 per gallon above futures prices. Based on Friday’s close, that points to roughly $3.70 to $3.80 a gallon, or another 20 to 30 cents of relief, according to Yahoo Finance calculations.
Market analyst Mike Zaccardi posted on X on Nov. 6, when the average stood at $4.07, that prices would be a 3-handle by mid-next week.
Even that would leave holiday drivers paying a record. The highest Thanksgiving-week average in EIA data going back to 1990 is $3.65, set in 2022.
The latest weekly reading, for the week of Nov. 2, was $4.15.
Adjusted for inflation, this year’s $4.50 peak in May comes to about $4.53 in current dollars, far below 2022’s $5.71 and 2008’s $6.33, according to Yahoo Finance calculations.
The slide picked up speed in the week of the Nov. 3 midterms, when pump prices fell 12 cents, the most since June. ING economist James Smith does not expect the election to change much.
In a Nov. 6 note, Smith wrote that gasoline prices mattered enormously to U.S. voters, but asked why diplomacy would suddenly succeed now that the political clock has reset for two years if it could not deliver a solution before the elections.
The fuel that moves goods by truck and rail hit a record $6.53 a gallon in the week of Sept. 21 and was still $6.29 in the latest reading. U.S.
stockpiles fell below 100 million barrels in late October, the lowest since 2003, the EIA said.
These costs are showing up across corporate America. S&P 500 companies mentioned “inflation” or “inflationary” 820 times on October earnings calls, the most since February 2024, Bloomberg reported, as fuel, fertilizer and plastic resin became more expensive.
Chris Versace of TheStreet Pro wrote Monday that the open question is the length of time needed to bring supply levels back to normal, which will help dictate how quickly inflation pressures fade and with them margin relief for companies.
The EIA’s next weekly reading is due Monday evening, October Consumer Price Index data follows Tuesday, and the Thanksgiving-week reading comes Nov. 23.
Internal AI tools helped analyze interview transcripts, research and draft the original post. Humans reviewed, edited and fact-checked it before publication, according to the publisher.
