"The strong build in gasoline stocks revealed yesterday certainly nudges some of the bigger issues out of the way," said Justin Smirk, senior economist at Westpac in Sydney. "Before the U.S. summer, there is always a cyclical focus on stock levels."

U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, well ahead of a 1.2 million forecast as refineries delivered increased output ahead of the Memorial Day holiday on May 29, the traditional launch of the U.S. summer driving season.

"Commodities are a bigger issue, with the market wondering if this is the start of a big correction," said Westpac's Smirk. "Our view is that until something big happens they will stay around these levels but we can expect high levels of volatility."

Oil slipped in tandem with most commodities. Copper fell more than 6 percent to reverse much of the previous session's recovery and gold fell over 5 percent to its lowest level in a month as investors continued to worry high prices would hurt demand.

Many commodity classes have recently traded around record highs, prompting concerns about inflation, higher interest rates and a slower global economy. Oil is below April's record $75.35, but is still up nearly 15 percent from the start of the year. "Anything that takes some of the tension out of the situation with Iran will also weigh on oil prices," said Westpac's Smirk. "It's a situation which has been supporting higher prices for some time now."

World powers meeting in London on Wednesday said they had made progress on a package of proposed threats and incentives to stop OPEC member Iran's nuclear program, which some believe is for weapons despite Tehran's insistence it wants nuclear power.

A spokesman for the State Department said that Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, had sought bilateral talks with the United States but that Washington would stick to a multilateral approach.

Longer-dated crude forward contracts are above $70 as expectations for a rough summer hurricane season underpin prices. The U.S. government has said the U.S. Gulf, still recovering from 2005, could see up to 10 hurricanes this year.

"This is the highest we've ever seen (gasoline) in our lifetime," Ima Gravitt says. "We've been coming here ... since the mid-'70s."

Drivers aren't the only ones anxiously eyeing gas prices. As the nation's boating season kicks into high gear over the Memorial Day weekend, boaters across the USA are changing the way they take part in their favorite recreational activity.

"They're all telling me gas prices are affecting the way people use their boats," says Scott Croft, spokesman for Boat Owners Association of the United States (BoatUS), the nation's largest advocacy group for recreational boaters. "I haven't heard anyone say they aren't going to be in the water at all. But people are cutting down on the time spent with the engine running. They're taking shorter trips and fewer trips. They're spending more time on the docks."

They're even "boat-pooling." Boaters wanting to fish the underwater canyons off the coasts of New Jersey and Southern California are doing "buddy-boating," Croft says. "They say, 'You take me fishing on your boat today, I'll take you on mine tomorrow.' "

'Good old boys' hurting

It might be hard for some cash-strapped commuters who have given up movies or dinner out to pay $3 a gallon for gas to feel much sympathy for boaters. But boaters are everywhere - there are about 70 million in the USA and 13 million registered boats.

Soaring gas prices have the biggest impact on owners of small boats and boaters on fixed incomes, says Robbie Nichols, owner of Southern Harbor Resort & Marina on West Point Lake. "The people fishing in the big tournaments, you don't see a drop with these guys," he says. "But you've got some regular good old boys coming and fishing in the smaller club tournaments, and they've had to cut back."

Gas prices are affecting boating elsewhere, too:

- Pennsylvania anglers are fishing closer to home this year. Ron Anderson, who owns the Appalachian Trails tackle shop near Lake Arthur in Moraine State Park about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, says, "Where they used to travel 50, 60 or 70 miles to go to a variety of lakes to fish, now they're reducing the number of outings and the distance traveled.

"A lot of my local guys who used to travel to Pymatuning Lake on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, about an hour and a half away with a boat in tow, are now fishing locally. And where they used to go three times a month, now they're going once a month," he says.

- Some marina owners expect a bad summer. Mary Briskey, one of the owners of Luna Pier Harbor Club in southern Michigan near Toledo, Ohio, says she expects about 25% of her 400 docks to go unrented this summer as boat owners stay home. Briskey says the highest number of idle docks in the past was about 10%.

"People are just deciding to not use their boats," she says.

Research has shown that anglers "are sensitive to the cost of accessing recreation sites," says Richard Ready, an assistant professor of agricultural and environmental economics at Penn State University. "We expect the new increase in gas prices will cause anglers to go fishing less frequently," he says.

Still, most boaters apparently plan to get on the water this year. Two-thirds of boat owners indicated that fuel prices would not cause them to use their boats less often, according to a survey this month by Nationwide Mutual Insurance. Many are willing to pay about $2.70 more per gallon - on top of the current price - before they'd consider docking their crafts.

Gas prices at marinas, where boaters fuel up, generally are higher than those at nearby service stations. For example, the price of mid-grade at Southern Harbor last week was $3.39 a gallon; at a Spectrum service station about 2 miles away, mid-grade was $2.94.

$668 to fill the tank

Prices like those have curtailed Don Baker's water activities. Baker, 64, is a retired electronics researcher and developer and a former air-traffic controller who owns a house on West Point Lake and a 63-foot houseboat he docks at Southern Harbor.

Baker says he has cut the time he spends cruising the lake by about 75%.

"We like to take the boat out on the water and cruise for 5-6 hours," he says. But it now costs about $668 to fill the tank. "I'm not going anywhere," Baker says.

Not everyone is cringing. Across the dock from Baker, Bob Atkins, 55, is fishing off the dock for crappie - not to save gas but because that's where they're biting, he says.

"It's not high enough to make that much of a difference," says Atkins, a sales and marketing director who owns a 24-foot fishing boat docked here. "What is it, a little more than two or three years ago? If you don't have disposable income, it's a problem. But most people who buy boats know they're going to have to spend money."

Robert Forsell, 65, drove to West Point Lake from his home in Milton, Fla., with two friends to fish for bass. His 18-foot pontoon boat, which has a 60-horsepower Mercury engine, gets about 6 miles to the gallon. But Forsell, who is retired from the Army, says gas prices aren't affecting his boating.

"We just plan ahead," he says. "We knew the gas prices were going to be what they are, so we knew what we were going to need. Where it hurt us was driving up here. We used $75 worth of gas."

Bankers are watching Mastercard closely for signs that recent stock market weakness might snuff out the mini-boom in flotations. The company's advisers were meeting last night to price the shares, which could value the company at between $5.3bn and $5.8bn.

Mastercard was set up by a coalition of banks to process electronic payments, and 1,400 banks, many of the small regional players, will get a windfall from the flotation. The biggest members include HSBC, which looks set to pocket $100m. JP Morgan Chase, the biggest shareholder with 10.4 per cent, could net more than $200m.

The flotation is a defensive move, aimed at shielding Mastercard's members, whose shareholding will be reduced from 100 per cent to between 46 and 49 per cent, from a legal assault by retailers and regulatory pressure across the globe.

Shopkeepers say they are being ripped off and that Mastercard and its arch-rival Visa International act anti-competitively to charge high fees for processing credit and debit card payments. Mastercard faces 40 class action suits in the US as well as political calls for an anti-trust investigation into the company. Last year, the UK's Office of Fair Trading ruled against Mastercard, saying it had breached competition law and that its fees amounted to a tax on consumers.

Mastercard's flotation takes the total money raised through share offerings on Wall Street this year to $21bn, almost 60 per cent more than at this point last year. Companies have been attracted by the buoyant stock market conditions, while investors have warmed to the big-name brands on offer.

Burger King's flotation raised $425m for the hamburger chain's private equity owners last week, while Chipotle, the Mexican fast-food chain spun off by McDonald's in January, is the year's best performing new share, having tripled since flotation. Traders gave a decidedly poor reception, however, to the flotation of Vonage yesterday. It had raised $531m, valuing the company at $2.6n, but its shares were down 14 per cent at their worst.

The company has attracted 1.6 million subscribers to its phone service offering voice calls over the internet, but it spends as much on marketing as it gets in revenue, and investors fear it may never turn a profit. Cable companies have begun to embrace internet telephony and are fighting back with cheap deals combining television, internet and phone services. Vonage has also been undermined by Skype, owned by eBay, which offers internet calls for free.