May Car Sales

There was a year over year drop. I use Ward's:
http://wardsauto.com/keydata/

Ward's has May auto sales down 3.6% YoY for May. Light trucks are down 4.2% YoY.

At the beginning of the year, light vehicle sales were really upholding the US economy, and now that seems to have reversed like everything else.

Some of this is from short inventory on vehicles affected by the Japanese quake/tsunami disaster, but if you download the spread sheet at the link, and if you look at the sales by company, you'll see that even US domestic sales fell. Therefore I would say light vehicle sales are structurally down.

This does mean that the May retail sales report will be bad; auto sales are a large component. When inventory is reported, Ward's will update the above link and we can tell more about future production plans.

......And lack of consumer confidence......I know you can.

Until OBAMA starts playing hardball and starts with FIRING his Bush ERA economic team and gets a more PERSON FRIENDLY team the economy will not start to improve.

Also after yesterdays White House meeting with the GOP the President should be interrupting a daily presser to tell the country that yesterday was the first time the GOP has mentioned the word JOBS in many months.


I don't feel the economy has hit the bottom yet before the swing up.....It wont until people feel secure about NOW and the FUTURE.

And don't forget HOUSING.

then their confidence level drops and so does their
enthusiasm to buy expensive items.