I noticed that at my local gas station, the gas price will spike to $3.19, then slowly drift down, only to spike back to $3.19 again. There's a few exceptions, of course, but the general trend pretty clear. This trend has been going on for at least a year and I finally decided to start keeping track using my iPhone/Siri to just note the gas price every time I drive by the gas station.

It's the same gas station near Temple Terrace, FL (just east of Tampa).

Posted by MysteriousLeader6187

10 comments

  1. Wow… love the graph, great job putting everything together.

    Side note – I cant remember the last time ive seen gas in the $2.xx range

  4. This is a famous trend called edgeworth cycles. It’s considered one way to have a stable equilibrium of relatively higher prices. 

  5. I bet the gas doesn’t change price all that much, and what they’re doing is psychological manipulation tactics. If you see the price go down a few cents, you’re more likely to fill up. If you see the gas went up that day, you’re gonna keep driving to the next stop or wait for the next day. People are more likely to stop at this gas station, because as far as they know, most days the price is a few cents cheaper than they remember seeing it before. Then, raising the price back up only hurts sales for that one day, so you only raise it once and make it count.

  6. This reflects what I see where I live. Lots of price volatility from day to day which is not justified by the underlying price of wholesale gasoline.

    This is a newer phenomenon — before prices were very stable day to day. I think this is some kind of organized price manipulation/optimization that the stations are starting to employ, maybe based on some algorithms indicating how to raise prices on certain days or time periods in order to maximize revenue.

  7. Looks like the low price of the cycle is climbing higher.

  8. ‘preciate letting me know the *second* you bought gas.

    really tells a story

  9. I get a 30 cent swing in central Florida that looks really close to this. The days of the week make it feel like surge pricing for commuting.

Comments are closed.