“All we have to have is a couple badly placed hurricanes which could constrain some of the refinery output capacity in some key locations,” says Richard Hastings, strategist at Global Hunter Securities in Charlotte, N.C. “If you get weakness in the dollar concurrent with the strong driving season concurrent with the impact of one or two hurricanes in the wrong place, prices could go up in a quasi-exponential manner.”…
Hastings sees gasoline having “no problem” getting to $6.50 a gallon over the summer after increased demand and storm disruptions come into play.
Others, though, say gasoline prices haven’t needed any help so far from other events—the moves by the Fed to keep interest rates in negative real terms are enough to boost energy by themselves.
