Auto Sales

To quantify the soft March auto sales, Wards said the SAAR was 16.53mm vs the estimate of 17.3mm and down from 17.5mm in February. That is the slowest pace of sales since February 2015. Edmonds last week estimated that inventories are at the highest level since 2004.

I’ll repeat again what I said earlier today, “we are past the best days in the auto sector in this cycle and it’s now hangover time. Easy money pulled forward a lot of car/truck sales and now there are less sales to pull forward. Add on falling used car prices and pressures will only grow for new ones. Banks also in response to rising delinquencies and falling residual values are likely in turn trimming financing offers.”