re: So Retail Gasoline is up 50% in the past month.....Is the Oil Bust Over?

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so whats behind a quick 50% move?

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Gasoline is based on the price of oil (obviously you already know this). Oil futures prices have been going up off of OPEC talk, and it is worthwhile to note that it is just talk. First was the talk of a production freeze with Russia if Iraq and Iran would join in (they obviously weren't going to); the market ate it up. Iran refuses.

OPEC later decides to start up an "emergency meeting" in March; the market runs with the hopes of a freeze and, perhaps later, a production cut. Of course, the market forgets that this meeting is such an emergency that they hadn't even set a date; instead, the meeting was the second half of March...-ish. Also, a freeze still oversupplies the global market. I don't think there was a determined meeting place, either.

Well, this meeting is such a grand emergency (and because the market has moved oil up so much based on literally nothing fundamental, just hopes) that OPEC has moved it back to April-ish. No date known yet, but I would wager that it will get pushed back to their regular annual meeting in June as long as the market keeps pushing oil up.

TL;DR: little boy OPEC is crying wolf, er, production freeze/cut/talks, and the market is eating it up and pushing prices up for OPEC to take advantage of.