[Lunatic Fringe]

They insulate themselves by immediately raising daily prices at the pump to reflect the daily price of oil, gas, etc. In fact, they seem much more willing to raise it immediately than they do to lower it when the market goes down.

They did a story on the local news and asked a gas station owner how he sets the price for gas. He said he gets in his car at 5:00am, drives up the road to big Shell/Exxon/Mobil/BP corner of gas stations, and sets his price $0.01 less than the cheapest price.

[xzins]

It wouldn't surprise me.

I've been told that it's determined by the NYMEX bid price of refined unleaded + so many cents for this that and the other.

[Boanarges]

"He said he gets in his car at 5:00am, drives up the road to big Shell/Exxon/Mobil/BP corner of gas stations, and sets his price $0.01 less than the cheapest price."

If his car get 15 miles to the gallon and he fills his tank at his own gas station before he leaves and drives 8 miles one way only to top off the tank at his competetitors gas station before returning and repeats this process every morning, will he profit or gain?