Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but quick to reduce them

Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by blantonl on Saturday July 25, 2020 @08:35AM (#23948722)

Same goes for gas prices. I heard an earnings call recently for a public company that runs a ton of gas stations. They indicated that their margins on gasoline have gone far far up and offsetted and losses of sales of drink/snacks etc in their stores, because they are quick to raise gas prices when oil prices go up, but very slow to do so when prices go down.

The amount of fascinating economic lessons we've gotten over the past 6 months is amazing. All kinds of cool things I've learned:

Pool companies are backed up 1 year right now with people nesting at home

Whirlpool blew their analysts earnings estimates out of the water on strong appliance sales due to "nesting at home"

Weber grills are on huge back order.

and on and on.

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by jacquesm on Saturday July 25, 2020 @08:56AM (#23948837)

> losses of sales of drink/snacks etc in their stores

As a former gas station owner, let me correct you here. Drinks and snacks, no matter how low the volume have crazy margins, sometimes 100% or more and make up a large fraction of gas station profits. It isn't rare to run the fuel at a loss to sell more ice cream and drinks.

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by jon-wood on Saturday July 25, 2020 @09:14AM (#23948945)

How can a product have > 100% margin? Were you getting paid by the supplier to stock their products?

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by gambiting on Saturday July 25, 2020 @09:18AM (#23948962)

Uhm, you buy an item for $1, sell it for $3, the margin is 200%, no?

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by sokoloff on Saturday July 25, 2020 @09:51AM (#23949165)

As typically defined: The margin is 67%. The markup is 200%.

Margin is "profit as percent of revenue". Markup is "profit as percent of COGS".

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by jon-wood on Saturday July 25, 2020 @09:43AM (#23949100)

Ugh, of course. I had a total blank on basic maths for a moment.

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by jacquesm on Saturday July 25, 2020 @01:35PM (#23950960)

You are right, I should have used markup, not margin. Apologies.

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Re:Banks are slow to increase rates on savings accounts, but... by leetrout on Saturday July 25, 2020 @08:58AM (#23948847)

I was just talking to a friend about that - a lot of 3D printers are sold out. Good webcams are gone. Cheap intex vinyl pools are gone or selling for 5-10x their original price. It really is astounding how quickly things shifted.

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