OIL’S NOT WELL

ONE thing that was missing this Fourth of July holiday – besides the sunshine and the 80-degree temperatures – was the usually predictable round of stories detailing the high price of gasoline from sea to shining sea.

One reason: on a relative basis, gasoline prices have been falling in the last few weeks as more U.S. refineries get back up to full capacity.

But at a national average of $3 a gallon, it’s clear that fewer Americans are complaining about the cost of filling up because we’re starting to get used to it. Just like $4 lattes, half-million dollar Manhattan studio apartments and $30 restaurant entrees, the sticker-shock has worn off – at least for now.

But that could change by late summer, with prices at the pump pushing closer to the $4 a gallon level – especially if current trends in the crude market accelerate. At more than $72 a barrel, crude prices are already up more than 40 percent from their lows earlier this year, and within striking distance of their 2005 post-Katrina high of $78.

All this, and we haven’t even seen the first major hurricane of the season.

Yet unlike the last price gusher in the summer of 2005, this time there is an eerie calm on Wall Street. No Goldman Sachs analysts coming out with dire predictions about $100 oil and no T. Boone Pickens preening about his oil-stock picks.

And unlike two years ago when the Dow fell about 500 points in tandem with the record run in oil prices, this summer there are virtually no Cassandras when it comes to the relentless rise in the price of black gold.

But beyond Broad and Wall streets there are troubling signs that the double whammy of falling home values and sky-high energy costs is making for a lean summer for Americans with little disposable income left to spend at the malls.

As Fred Hickey reports in the latest edition of his “High Tech Strategist,” June retail sales due out next week are likely to show surprising softness. Even Target has lowered its expectations. This on the heels of reports that U.S. auto sales fell into the abyss last month – down more than 20 percent at GM and off 8 percent at Ford.

When it comes to dining out this summer, the numbers are just as jarring. From Wendy’s to Red Lobster, most major restaurant chains are seeing their customer counts fall from over a year ago – as U.S. consumers cut back.

Of course Wall Street has deftly climbed a wall of worry all year – shrugging off the meltdown in subprime mortgages, the implosion of two Bear Stearns hedge funds and even the troubling terror news out of Great Britain.

No, this market seems to want to go up – and it has happily discounted news that usually brings the sellers out in droves. The worry now is the lack of worry when it comes to the very real prospect of $80 or $90 a barrel oil.

TERRY KEENANis anchor of Cashin’ In, an investing program that appears on Fox News Channel on Saturday mornings at 11:30. E-mail [email protected].