Why Slumping Auto Sales May Not Say What You Think They Say
July auto sales (released today and charted below) remained weak and should trigger a few recession forecasts. In fact, over the past few months we’ve read about half a dozen commentaries linking the recent plunge in auto sales to an imminent recession. And we understand the reasoning, but we’ve yet to buy into it.
We agree that car sellers face a degree of demand saturation while potential buyers suffer from credit saturation, or at least that’s what the data seem to show. We also agree that the saturation twins tend to be late-cycle indicators. But we’d like to add another possible explanation for slowing auto sales, one that yields a different conclusion about recession risks.
