The "courage of their conviction"? That's on the verge of demented! You chastise some guy for wanting to provide a better llife for his AMERICAN, CORN FED family? Whos side are you on?
The "courage of their conviction"? That's on the verge of demented! You chastise some guy for wanting to provide a better llife for his AMERICAN, CORN FED family? Whos side are you on?
http://www.investorguide.com/stock.cgi?ticker=XOM
Yeah, it appears to be at a high. Best not to follow popular stocks like sheep. Buy it when it's low and hold it for life and reinvest dividends.
1. refined Gas prices are set by spot market buyers... not oil companies.
2. Price of crude is set by a number of factors- spot market is becoming more of an issue here, geopolitics, OPEC, and Demand by China.... And even if Demand has stayed consistant, the futures predict China trying to guzzle far more than they do now.
3. U.S. Oil companies are subsidized by the U.S. gov't in order to compete against foreign nationally controlled companies. If you thing Exxon is huge, -they are a child next to some of the nationalized oil companies elseware in the world.
4. U.S. oil company's profit on revenue is roughly 7 to 10%.... That's pretty normal when compared to other company's profit% vs revenue in other lines of business ie; technology, banks, etc..... Yet I don't see anyone bitching about their profits.
Look at the larger picture folks... Big oil isn't out to get anybody, or rip them off, but they do benefit by the actions of spot market buyers, which they have no control over.
At least in the short term this will bring more attention to hybrids, and alternative energy research.... That's not a bad after affect.
2. Price of crude is set by a number of factors- spot market is becoming more of an issue here, geopolitics, OPEC, and Demand by China.... And even if Demand has stayed consistant, the futures predict China trying to guzzle far more than they do now.
3. U.S. Oil companies are subsidized by the U.S. gov't in order to compete against foreign nationally controlled companies. If you thing Exxon is huge, -they are a child next to some of the nationalized oil companies elseware in the world.
4. U.S. oil company's profit on revenue is roughly 7 to 10%.... That's pretty normal when compared to other company's profit% vs revenue in other lines of business ie; technology, banks, etc..... Yet I don't see anyone bitching about their profits.
Look at the larger picture folks... Big oil isn't out to get anybody, or rip them off, but they do benefit by the actions of spot market buyers, which they have no control over.
At least in the short term this will bring more attention to hybrids, and alternative energy research.... That's not a bad after affect.
Powermoloch
Lifer
- Jul 5, 2005
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BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
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There was an article on this in this morning's business section:
http://www.modbee.com/business/story/12517986p-13232364c.html
"U.S. oil companies blame the global oil market for high gasoline prices, but a close analysis of pricing suggests it's not so simple: The run-up at the pump also comes from domestic refining, which is largely controlled by Big Oil.
The Associated Press examined pricing trends since 1999, which was the starting bell for the modern era of pricier gasoline, and asked several economists to analyze the results. It found evidence that:
The portion of gas prices tied to refining has ballooned on its own, apart from oil.
The suspicion of frustrated drivers is correct: After upward spikes, the price of gasoline drops back more slowly than the price of oil ? and someone pockets the difference.
"It really leaves you bitter because we've suspected it for years," Kasha Bachar of Modesto said after she was told of the AP analysis. "But I'm not sure anything will be done about it because people continue to buy gasoline, and Americans don't like to use public transportation."
Joe Mitchell, a manager at Sky Trek Aviation in Modesto, also doesn't believe people will fight back against what he sees as price gouging.
"The only way to really handle it is to boycott gasoline, but the public will never organize and do that," Mitchell said. "Nothing will be done."
If that's true, gas prices most likely will remain high, regardless of what oil prices do, said Sean Comey, a spokesman for AAA of Northern California, which tracks gasoline prices in the state.
"If the oil companies are selling as much gas at $2 a gallon as they are at $3.15, where's the incentive for them to lower prices?" Comey said. "That's why we are trying to encourage people to conserve. Even small cutbacks can make a big difference."
In the past year, the average price of regular gas in Modesto rose from $2.56 to $3.12, Comey said. In California, it rose from $2.58 to $3.24.
The country's average price for regular gas climbed to a record high at just over $3 a gallon in July, according to the Lundberg Survey research firm. The petroleum industry knows many drivers are steamed about its record prices and profits.
In a recent television commercial by the industry's American Petroleum Institute, a driver wonders "why world demand for crude oil determines what I pay at the pump."
The industry wants Americans to know that the price of gas tracks the price of its chief ingredient, crude oil. Why? Oil prices are set on a world market, often beyond the direct control of American petroleum companies.
The group has a point. Crude oil does account for just under half the price of gasoline, the government says. And oil prices are subject partly to supply decisions of foreign oil powers and stiff demand in Europe and Asia.
Many Americans, however, remain dubious, even contemptuous, of industry claims.
"It's a bunch of bull. It's just to cover their behinds," said Fernando Reas of Hartford, Conn., who was saving on gas this summer by vacationing nearer home at a trailer park at Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod.
Refineries add to cost
Consumers such as Reas are right to suspect there's more to the story.
A big chunk of gas prices ? almost a fifth ? pays refiners who make gasoline from oil, and America's refineries have been hiking their prices, too.
Charges of refineries can be detected in what's known as their "margin" ? the difference between what they pay for crude oil and what they collect for the gas they refine. Service station costs and taxes add to the final retail price of gas.
In a competitive market, when raw material gets more expensive, margins typically shrink, economists say. Not so in the oil business these days. Refiners have managed to fatten their margins through years of rising oil costs.
Since 1999, their average margin has jumped by 85 percent, reaching 43 cents for June, according to AP's analysis of daily data from the New York Mercantile Exchange. That margin increased by just 20 percent in the seven preceding years.
Rayola Dougher, who oversees market issues for the American Petroleum Institute, said today's margins are helping refiners bounce back from leaner times of the 1990s. "They're still as a sector struggling, but certainly the last few years have been looking good," she acknowledges.
Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, blames high gas prices on high oil prices "which are frankly out of our control" ? not decisions by refiners to hold back on gas. But he also said, "There is no law that says you can make people in an industry invest and expand capacity."
Gas prices follow oil on the way up
There's another way to fatten your take: Once prices are up, you can keep them there.
An examination of gasoline prices relative to those of oil shows this tendency: Gas prices shoot up along with oil's ? but they sputter down slowly, lagging behind drops in crude prices.
The AP analysis looked at weekly federal pricing data since September 1999. It found a gallon of retail gas rose an average of 6 cents for a 10-cent rise in oil, but dropped only 4 cents for a 10-cent decline in oil ? suggesting that gas temporarily resisted downward shifts more strongly than oil.
Economists call the phenomenon "downward sticky" prices.
"When costs go down, there's a margin there that people are happy to hold on to as long as they can," said economist Richard Gilbert at the University of California at Berkeley.
Refining groups suggest gas stations may be offsetting losses they suffered earlier, when their margins were squeezed by the spiking cost of wholesale gas. But gas stations, backed by some market studies, say their skinny margins are hard to pad.
Then who would pocket "downward sticky" profits? Economists suspect it's more likely the businesses that set wholesale prices charged to gas stations: the refiners."
http://www.modbee.com/business/story/12517986p-13232364c.html
"U.S. oil companies blame the global oil market for high gasoline prices, but a close analysis of pricing suggests it's not so simple: The run-up at the pump also comes from domestic refining, which is largely controlled by Big Oil.
The Associated Press examined pricing trends since 1999, which was the starting bell for the modern era of pricier gasoline, and asked several economists to analyze the results. It found evidence that:
The portion of gas prices tied to refining has ballooned on its own, apart from oil.
The suspicion of frustrated drivers is correct: After upward spikes, the price of gasoline drops back more slowly than the price of oil ? and someone pockets the difference.
"It really leaves you bitter because we've suspected it for years," Kasha Bachar of Modesto said after she was told of the AP analysis. "But I'm not sure anything will be done about it because people continue to buy gasoline, and Americans don't like to use public transportation."
Joe Mitchell, a manager at Sky Trek Aviation in Modesto, also doesn't believe people will fight back against what he sees as price gouging.
"The only way to really handle it is to boycott gasoline, but the public will never organize and do that," Mitchell said. "Nothing will be done."
If that's true, gas prices most likely will remain high, regardless of what oil prices do, said Sean Comey, a spokesman for AAA of Northern California, which tracks gasoline prices in the state.
"If the oil companies are selling as much gas at $2 a gallon as they are at $3.15, where's the incentive for them to lower prices?" Comey said. "That's why we are trying to encourage people to conserve. Even small cutbacks can make a big difference."
In the past year, the average price of regular gas in Modesto rose from $2.56 to $3.12, Comey said. In California, it rose from $2.58 to $3.24.
The country's average price for regular gas climbed to a record high at just over $3 a gallon in July, according to the Lundberg Survey research firm. The petroleum industry knows many drivers are steamed about its record prices and profits.
In a recent television commercial by the industry's American Petroleum Institute, a driver wonders "why world demand for crude oil determines what I pay at the pump."
The industry wants Americans to know that the price of gas tracks the price of its chief ingredient, crude oil. Why? Oil prices are set on a world market, often beyond the direct control of American petroleum companies.
The group has a point. Crude oil does account for just under half the price of gasoline, the government says. And oil prices are subject partly to supply decisions of foreign oil powers and stiff demand in Europe and Asia.
Many Americans, however, remain dubious, even contemptuous, of industry claims.
"It's a bunch of bull. It's just to cover their behinds," said Fernando Reas of Hartford, Conn., who was saving on gas this summer by vacationing nearer home at a trailer park at Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod.
Refineries add to cost
Consumers such as Reas are right to suspect there's more to the story.
A big chunk of gas prices ? almost a fifth ? pays refiners who make gasoline from oil, and America's refineries have been hiking their prices, too.
Charges of refineries can be detected in what's known as their "margin" ? the difference between what they pay for crude oil and what they collect for the gas they refine. Service station costs and taxes add to the final retail price of gas.
In a competitive market, when raw material gets more expensive, margins typically shrink, economists say. Not so in the oil business these days. Refiners have managed to fatten their margins through years of rising oil costs.
Since 1999, their average margin has jumped by 85 percent, reaching 43 cents for June, according to AP's analysis of daily data from the New York Mercantile Exchange. That margin increased by just 20 percent in the seven preceding years.
Rayola Dougher, who oversees market issues for the American Petroleum Institute, said today's margins are helping refiners bounce back from leaner times of the 1990s. "They're still as a sector struggling, but certainly the last few years have been looking good," she acknowledges.
Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, blames high gas prices on high oil prices "which are frankly out of our control" ? not decisions by refiners to hold back on gas. But he also said, "There is no law that says you can make people in an industry invest and expand capacity."
Gas prices follow oil on the way up
There's another way to fatten your take: Once prices are up, you can keep them there.
An examination of gasoline prices relative to those of oil shows this tendency: Gas prices shoot up along with oil's ? but they sputter down slowly, lagging behind drops in crude prices.
The AP analysis looked at weekly federal pricing data since September 1999. It found a gallon of retail gas rose an average of 6 cents for a 10-cent rise in oil, but dropped only 4 cents for a 10-cent decline in oil ? suggesting that gas temporarily resisted downward shifts more strongly than oil.
Economists call the phenomenon "downward sticky" prices.
"When costs go down, there's a margin there that people are happy to hold on to as long as they can," said economist Richard Gilbert at the University of California at Berkeley.
Refining groups suggest gas stations may be offsetting losses they suffered earlier, when their margins were squeezed by the spiking cost of wholesale gas. But gas stations, backed by some market studies, say their skinny margins are hard to pad.
Then who would pocket "downward sticky" profits? Economists suspect it's more likely the businesses that set wholesale prices charged to gas stations: the refiners."
I hope the prices keep going up, maybe people will change their life styles and electric car will make a comeback again..
Amused
Elite Member
- Apr 14, 2001
- 57,295
- 19,311
- 146
Really, Dave?
How about you show us, with valid proof, how gas prices are set? Tell us how, when world oil prices jumped from less than $20 a barrel to more than $70 a barrel, gas companies have any other option but to raise their prices accordingly?
Show us just how oil and gas are not commodities set by market forces, not companies.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
- 0
The only way alternate fuels will develop successfully is when oil prices rise and the market demands it.
Profit Margins:
Exxon = 11%
Google = 25%
Starbucks = 8%
IBM = 10%
Intel = 18%
Pfizer = 21%
Ebay = 24%
Yahoo = 21%
Honda = 7%
Citibank = 32%
Washington Post = 9%
Oil companies are on the lower side of the profit tree. Financial institutions, software companies, drug companies and others are much higher. Just because we use a lot of their product doesn't mean we should penalize them for this. Open your eyes people...companies are going to make profits but you MUST treat them all the same.
Why is nobody complaining about coffee prices? software prices? newspaper prices? bank fees? google's profit?
Probably in an expansion phase, as they have been in a while. Opening something like 3 new stores a day isn't cheap.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
- 0
Starbucks is a growth company, still expanding at a rapid pace. Most retail growth companies lose money as they are investing in new locations, training and have a tough time bringing more production online to fill the new locations.
8% is a respectable number. Their market cap is 26.1B; about three times the value of AMD.
Stop clouding the lynch mob with your silly facts and truths. It ruins the whole "corporations are bad......they're all corporationy and stuff..and they make money" mentality.
We can have none of that.
The price of oil is kept artificially low by the government. In most markets, businesses will set the price to whatever is the most profitable, but it's clear oil companies would be a lot more profitable if they jacked up the price even more. Maybe if they did we'd finally figure out how to not be so dependant on oil.
But who can we look to, that will save us from these greedy capitalist mega-corps? :roll:
One of my favorite campaign slogans is...
"Vote for me and we'll put business out of business"
One of my favorite campaign slogans is...
"Vote for me and we'll put business out of business"
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