Diesel prices have wrapped up four days of trading in which they are finishing far higher than they were at the start of the business week and have moved up faster than crude and gasoline prices.
It’s a worrisome trend for consumers because it signals that once again, diesel is moving at a pace more bullish than that of the petroleum market as a whole. That it already has done so in recent months is evident in the gasoline-diesel spread seen on price signs outside of retail outlets, and it has a complex set of causes.
Ultra low sulfur diesel for July delivery settled on the CME commodity exchange Friday at $4.2803 a gallon. That marked a gain of 7.19 cents per gallon on the day for an increase of 1.71%. It traded as high as $4.3250.
For the week — which was just four trading days, given the Memorial Day holiday — July ULSD rose 9.6%, posting a gain of 37.5 cents per gallon.
By contrast, the gain in WTI over the four days (from the May 27 settlement through the settlement at the end of this week) was 3.3% for West Texas Intermediate crude, barely any overall movement for global crude benchmark Brent, and 8.6% for RBOB, an unfinished gasoline blendstock that is a trading proxy for gasoline.
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