Labor Day 2008 - Gas Prices Revisited

Labor Day 2008!

You can hear the chorus everywhere. Where did the Summer go?! It's back to school time for kids and the end of Summer vacations for most. In fact the long Labor Day weekend is when families hit the road to travel to see friends, family and resort areas. But this year high gas prices have altered the plans of many and a new word invented, the "staycation". In fact high gas prices have had ripple effects throughout the American and world economy. Because of these changes I thought this would be a good time to revisit the issue of gas prices and where we stand at the end of August.

In the June 19 About Business post, "Gas Prices in the News" the average price of regular gas in Pittsfield was $4.102. The national average was $4.073. On July 17 the national average reached its highest point $4.114. Since that peak national gas prices have dropped a little over 10% to $3.682; these prices courtesy of AAA's daily Fuel Gauge Report. For Pittsfield there has been a 43 cent drop since June 19 to the current $3.674, still just over a 10% decline.

If you are traveling this Labor Day weekend, you may want to know where the lowest prices are. Which states have the "cheapest" average prices? Which cities have the "cheapest" rates? To find this information out use AAA's daily State by State averages and its Gas Price Locators. As an example I'm traveling to Connecticut from Massachusetts this weekend. Average rates in Connecticut are $3.816; Massachusetts $3.607. Pittsfield's lowest rate is $3.57; Southern Connecticut $3.82 to $3.97. This tells me I should plan my weekend gas purchases in Massachusetts. You may use these tools to plot your own purchases.

Gas prices have impacted both travel plans, how people travel, and also automobile sales. In the area of automotive sales, SUV's are languishing in dealer lots and automotive companies have launched heavy incentives to clear the lots for the introduction of 2009 models. If companies have cars with good fuel economy they are emphasizing those models. For example General Motors is touting its Chevrolet Cobalt, a car they had planned to discontinue but no more it seems. It's fuel economy is competitive. Automotive companies are downsizing their models, discontinuing many truck lines and this has been true of Japanese companies as well as they have seen their SUV and pick up truck sales decline. Labor Day is often thought as the best time to buy a new car both because of price incentives and change of models from 2008 to 2009 and this year is no exception.

CNNMoney.com has just issued a report on August automobile sales. There they report a slight rebound from the July 16 year low of 12.5 million vehicles sold. August sales are estimated at over 13 million. However this number is 3 million less vehicles sold than August 2007 sales of 16.2 million. So the automotive picture is bleak for the companies but good for buyers, who can get good bargains. Buyers have to be aware that the highest price incentive packages are for vehicles often not competitive for fuel economy. As a reminder it is the EPA that tracks fuel economy. Their guide should be looked at in the library or online if fuel economy is one of your priorities.

So increased gas prices are greatly affecting the economy and people are curtailing their plans. Back to Labor Day. What is the immediate impact for this weekend? The New York Daily News online edition of August 28 had a most interesting report by staff writer Oren Yaniv "Dropping GasPrices Signal More Travel". Yaniv makes a strong argument, using AAA/Travel Industry Association figures that people's travel plans have decline less than 1% from Labor Day 2007. But how they travel has changed. Here's AAA's estimates: 34.4 million traveling, 28.6 million by car, 4 million by air for an average distance of 888 miles and $826 in family expenditures. Labor Day appears as always to be the last fling before settling down to Fall and Winter preparations.

Generally, gas prices decline after Labor Day. This year it is increasingly difficult to predict. What will the impact of Hurricane Gustav be? Oil price per barrel is down to between $117 and $120 from highs of $147. Many towns and villages and homeowners and renters are fearful of increased energy costs for the harsh New England winters. There is the air of impending crisis for all businesses and individuals that operate on small margins.

The future will be faced with mixed feelings that come from a volatile situation. The national holiday of Labor Day at least gives people the opportunity have a release before they have to buckle down to uncertainty ahead. It's also the only time we may honor freely each other as workers.

Enjoy your holiday!

Most Powerful Business Web Sites

What are the most powerful Business Web Sites?

Crain Publishing's Business to Business Marketing Magazine answers this question annually in its special reports on Media Power. Media Power 2008 was released in May and names 50 industry leading web sites. A wide variety of criteria are used, including ad revenue, number of views, length of time spent on sites by users, paid circulation ( if applicable), ad rates, and multiple surveys. The audience for these reports are ad agencies, corporate marketers, anyone engaged in concerted ad campaigns. Audience tracking companies, such as Nielsen, are not only involved in tracking television but also Internet web sites and their impact. So Business to Business Magazine pools all this information to come up with its ratings.

Here's who made the list of top Business Internet sites in alphabetical order: www.allbusiness.com, www.business.com, www.cnetnetworks.com, www.cnnmoney.com, www.entrepreneur.com, www.forbes.com, www.google.com, www.infoworld.com, www.msn.com, www.nytimes.com, www.techtarget.com, www.thomasnet.com, www.wsj.com, and www.yahoo.com. Click on the highlighted "list of top Business Internet sites" and highlighted web addresses for detailed reports. The Wall Street Journal held the number 1 position closely followed by Google. The list shows the continuing shift from print media to online electronic media and the trend towards incorporating interactive social networking.

For the print media the most powerful General Business Magazines were Barron's, Business Week, CFO ( Chief Financial Officer ), Conde Nast Portfolio, The Economist, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, and Inc Magazines. While each of these magazines is in fact a print magazine available on newstands and libraries such as ours, each has an active online presence and vast additional online resources at their sites. Click on the magazine names to visit their sites.

Business to Business Magazine also rates business newspapers. Most powerful outlets for 2008 are The Financial Times, Investors Business Daily, The New York Times. USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. Click on "business newspapers" for the special report. Visit the websites of the newspapers by clicking on the name of the paper. Each of these newspapers with the exception of the Wall Street Journal has considerable content available free on their websites. Last year the New York Times made their entire site free. The special report shows considerable revenue gains for the Times' online edition so it appears their "free" strategy has reaped rewards. Other newspapers are likely to follow their lead.

In the coming weeks we will explore the business resources of many of these magazines and what they offer to small businesses and to the interested reader. Meanwhile nearly all of these most powerful business magazines and newspapers can be read at the Berkshire Athenaeum where you can freely bring yourself up to date and follow your interest.

Investopedia ( Essential Business Tools )

I don't know about you, but I find dictionaries fascinating. When I look up a word, there's always another word nearby that's just as interesting or more so. That leads to another word! And soon I'm paging through the dictionary from one section to another. Like eating chocolates you just can't stop with one (chocolate or word).

Oddly enough the same is true of dictionaries of business and finance. I mean, just what is short selling? It's been in the news with respect to Fannie Mae. Like all trades, vocations, professions, business and finance has its own unique language. It's a code that if you are going to survive you need to break. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, who or what are you going to call to break these codes? That's where Investopedia comes in.

Founded in 1999 by Cory Wagner and Cory Janssen, Investopedia became a Forbes Digital Company in April 2007. With Forbes behind Investopedia it is an essential business and financial tool, the most extensive financial dictionary available. While our focus here is on the dictionary, Investopedia is encyclopedic in scope covering all aspects of investing.

Investopedia features a searchable index as well as 11 separate dictionaries of terms grouped by specialized subsections including acronyms, buzzwords, bonds, stocks, foreign exchange, mutual funds, options and futures, retirement, trading, technical analysis, and taxes. ( Click on highlighted words for lists of terms and definitions. ) And, yes, you will find definitions for "short selling or positions" in the "stocks" section. Try to check any of these lists out without compulsively going from one term to another! This is nearly impossible! As above "like chocolate".

Under acronyms you'll find out what "apy" is; under buzzwords, what "back up the truck"means; under mutual funds, what "exchange privilege" means; under taxes, what
"gas guzzler tax" means; and so on. There are thousands of terms, each clearly defined. Want to know more. Each term refers to related terms. And on Investopedia there are extensive followup articles and tutorials, a veritable university of investing. Here's the link to tutorials on "short selling" Short sellers are investors who are betting a stock will fall in price but that's just the "short" of it. The lesson is in the link.

You will find Investopedia an essential business tool. It is free and we've just scratched the service in this post. Looking for books on investing, check out Investing For Dummies by Eric Tyson and Investing Online For Dummies by Kathleen Sindell. For dictionaries of finance see Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms by John Downes and Dictionary of Financial Terms by Virginia B. Morris. All these books are available at the Berkshire Athenaeum or your local library.

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