Crushing The “Lower Gas Price = More Spending” Fiction | Zero Hedge.
Caveats to the equation: lower gas prices = more spending
Aside from the long-standing issues of minimal income growth and lackluster job creation, consumers have become accustomed to an end-of-the-year price reprieve at the pump, and in some cases are simply using the increased funds to offset rising utilities and health care costs. We explore the various facets of this in further detail below:
1) Consumers have become accustomed to extreme volatility in energy prices. Particularly around this time of year, consumers are increasingly familiar with energy price reprieve from summer gas prices and no longer adjust their long-term spending habits as much, or at all, based on short-term price fluctuations.
Since reaching a high of $3.69 in June, average gas prices have fallen more than fifty cents a gallon, to a monthly average of $3.17 as of October, and have continued to fall throughout the early weeks of November. While impressive, this four-month decline is hardly unusual. In 2011, retail gasoline prices fell from an average monthly high of $3.91 in May to $3.27 by year-end, a decline of nearly sixty-five cents over seven months.
Then again in 2012, after ratcheting up to $3.85 at the end of September, gasoline prices tumbled more than fifty cents a gallon in just three months, down to $3.31 before turning the corner to 2013. And finally, last year told a similar story of lower energy prices before the holidays, dropping nearly thirty-five cents by the end of the year to $3.28 a gallon.
In each case, retail spending was hardly robust with an average monthly sales pace of 0.4% over the past four years. In fact, the largest monthly increase was in September 2012, up over 1%, thanks to a hefty increase in electronics purchases corresponding to the release of the iPhone 5. This September, retail sales saw a similar boost from the release of the iPhone 6.
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