by Calculated Risk on 9/23/2022 04:09:00 PM

From WardsAuto: September U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales Tracking to 5-Month High (pay content).  Brief excerpt:

"Despite the amount of pent-up demand waiting to be tapped, without an increase in incentives combined with dealers selling fewer vehicles above sticker price, waning availability of affordable offerings on dealer lots will cause sales gains to lag the expected growth in inventory."

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and Wards forecast for September (Red).

The Wards forecast of 13.7 million SAAR, would be mostly up 4% from last month, and up 11% from a year ago (sales started to weaken in mid-2021, due to supply chain issues).

Vehicle sales are usually a transmission mechanism for Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy (far behind housing).  However, this time, vehicle sales have been suppressed by supply chain issues, and will probably not be significantly impacted by higher interest rates.