Oil War Pushes Gas Prices Lower
ROMANS: All right. Let's get an early start on your money this morning. Asian stocks soaring. Just look at Shanghai, up 4.3 percent because of strong data from the U.S. and then hopes of more stimulus measures there. European stocks are up as well, ahead of a decision on interest rates by the European Central Bank. U.S. stock futures they are barely budging. But forget about that. Look at that. Stocks are the highest they have ever been. Yesterday, the Dow and S&P 500 both record highs. Stocks have been a broken record, a broken record. The S&P 500 up 12 percent this year. It's an oil market game of chicken. American energy going up against OPEC. Prices are falling. Neither side seems willing to budge. Right now, crude oil about $67 a barrel. That's following OPEC's decision not to cut output, down almost 40 percent from summer highs. It means oil producers everywhere are hurting. But oil heavyweights like Exxon and Chevron could survive $40 a barrel.</s>BERMAN: That they don't want to.</s>ROMANS: Who does, right? Well, Americans do. If prices stay low, smaller energy companies are likely to be in bigger trouble. That means more oil company mergers in the near future, if you were an investor in the oil patch, maybe fewer dividends. Watch this space. And tumbling oil means cheap gas. And when I say cheap, I mean, less than 2 bucks a gallon in some places. Some gas stations in Oklahoma right now are already selling gas below $2. And GasBuddy says drivers in, here we go, Virginia, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and New Mexico, you could join Oklahoma, folks, by this weekend. I'm not kidding -- by this weekend, gas below $2. If the oil war keeps pushing prices down, below $2 gas could soon be common in lots of places.</s>BERMAN: Wow. All right, EARLY START continues right now.