September auto sales were the worst (economic reporting) in a long time
September auto sales were the worst (economic reporting) in a long time
I don’t think I have seen as badly, or worse, outright misleading reporting in a long time as I have seen concerning September auto sales.
Almost all of the stories — and especially the Doomish punditry that dominates the clickbait econoblogosphere — have seized on the BIG BIG DOWNTURN!!! in auto sales YoY, varying between a -5.6% decline (“So, all in all it was a lousy month”) to a 7% decline (“Auto sales sputtered … Several major auto makers reported steep declines in U.S. sales”). Or, “U.S. Auto Sales Look Shaky, Could Be Start to Rough Road Ahead.”
OMG, head for the hills!
Then, down maybe 10 paragraphs (if at all), it’s noted that the YoY comparison is with the spike in replacement sales that occurred after Hurricane Harvey dumped up to 50″ of rain on east Texas, including the 6 million population Houston metro.
Oh.
And somewhere before the end of the article, it might be grudgingly conceded that the seasonally adjusted annualized rate of sales for September 2018 might be over 17 million. In fact, the two best estimates are 17.3 million from Ward’s Intelligence, and 17.4 million from AutoData. Here’s the graph from Ward’s:
So, how does 17.3 or 17.4 million look compared to recent data?
Here are monthly light vehicle sales since 2010 (through August):
There were only two months since the beginning of 2017 that exceeded 17.3 million sales annualized, one of which was last September. In fact, 17.3 million units is right in line with average sales during the best two years of this expansion.
And, speaking of hurricanes, Florence probably knocked out sales for the eastern halves of North and South Carolina last month. Since the population of these two states combined is about16 million (or about 4.6% of the US population), figure that Florence subtracted a little over 2% from this September’s sales. Adjusting for that would bring sales to 17.6 or 17.7 million annualized.
And there’s not a scintilla of a hint that this report is recessionary, when we take a longer term look at auto sales:
These tend to have lengthy plateaus during expansions, and turn down about a year before the next recession. Give me a couple of months in a row under 16.5 million units, and I’ll start to worry.
In the meantime, spare me the ignorant or misleading reporting.
Overall sales in September were 16.5. I doubt Florence did much. Most of the state wasn’t flooded and we are talking about 2-3 million people, not 16 million.
This is a lazy post and a lie. The next 2 months will not look good here, period.
Ok Bert:
16.5 what? 16.5 million vehicles in the month of September or 16.5 million vehicles annualized? Sales for the month of September 2018 were 1.432 million which is down almost 100,000 vehicles from September 2017 when it was 1.524 million. Passenger cars took the hit and were down 20% while TBTFTO (Suvs and Pickup Trucks) were up 2.4%. SAAR for 2018 is at 17.44 million as compared to 18.16 million for 2018 YOY September. That is a half a million vehicles which means they will take a longer shut down over Christmas in some plants (autos).
https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/salesfig_usa_2018
I work automotive and have traveled globally to many plants consulting and reviewing supply chain. There is nothing wrong with NDD’s post. I said the same thing further on down in the Michigan post.
Your wrong. Total sales EX-fleet were down to 16.5 at least, maybe down to 16.3. The extra number of selling days distorted September, which is why is why people ignored the yearly adjusted overhead number. If the sector was healthy due to the monthly hedonics, it would have been closer to 18 SAARS in overall numbers. Both the extra days and fleet sales will decline in October creating a hedonic downturn in auto sales in October as losing the large October surge last year proved in 2016 after the large surge in October 2015, which had a similar story, yet better core sales in 2016 kept the main line numbers from looking “bad”.
16.5 what? Explain yourself. Citation please.