We all want to know what going to happen. That's one reason I love economics, it lets me make predictions about the future. For example, supply and demand analysis isn't about drawing graphs its about making predictions about future prices.
Another way to predict the future is to study futures prices. Many products have futures markets where buyers and sellers trade contracts for delivery of some product in the future. Some examples are cotton, wheat, gasoline, and even currencies. These futures prices are not always correct, in fact, they are almost always wrong but they tend to be "unbiased estimates" of actual prices in the future. An unbiased estimate is equally likely to be higher or lower than the actual figure.
Gasoline is one product we all buy which is traded in these futures markets. To tell what is going to happen to prices in the very near future, I check Bloomberg and add 55-60 cents and that will be the pump price in Monroe 1-3 weeks from now.
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