One of the most interesting places to watch markets is the area of gas prices. I say "interesting" because from everything I understand, stations set gas prices at cost rather than to maximize profits. The rationale is that they make most of their money from the convenience store and low gas prices bring people in. I think that there's some truth to that.

In a pretty straight-forward way it can show you more than a bit about property value. For instance, if two Shell stations have different prices, then most likely one either pays higher rent or the other gets enough business that they can afford to sell the gas at a loss if it gets people to buy a coke and hot dog inside. I haven't taken enough business courses to understand all of it, but I have taken enough (and, to be honest, been stuck in traffic long enough) to think about such things.

I live in a town called Pocatello and I work in an equally sized town called Idaho Falls. What's been interesting to me is that when I first started working up in IF, the gas prices were 10-15 cents lower than Pocatello's. that interested me in and of itself because who would guess that 50 miles or so would create a supply shortage to drive up costs or that the markets of two nearly identically-sized towns could have different markets to warrant that kind of price differential.

But in January the prices reached parity and this week - for the first time - cheap-brand gas in Idaho Falls is more expensive than name-brand gas in Pocatello. Since it's most likely not a case of the gas stations marking prices up, I'm extremely curious about what has changed in the market over the last year to give Pocatello a price advantage.