The nearly 20 percent slide in wholesale gasoline prices is starting to be reflected in prices at the pump.
The national average for regular gasoline has fallen more than a nickel in the past week to $2.83/gallon, according to AAA/OPIS. Tom Kloza, an analyst with OPIS, expects retail gasoline prices to fall to $2.75 by next weekend.
That savings may be a boon for consumers. Kloza says "if you were to project retail prices from current numbers, you would come up with a June/July/August consumer expense in 2010 that would be about $53-billion below what was paid in June/July/August 2008" for gasoline.
So "consumers should have plenty of additional money to spend," Kloza says. "And I suppose you can count that money as energizing other retail segments."