Double Entendre: Light Vehicle Sales July 2010

While the latest sales results from automakers generally came in weaker than last year when sales boomed as a result of the government’s sham “cash-for-clunkers” policy, looking at the Department of Commerce light vehicle sales series you can see that for the better part of the last decade auto sales have been terrible, stuck in a perpetual declining trend since 1999 with the current level of sales last seen way back in early 1983.

With the tightening consumer credit conditions, structurally high unemployment and a decade long disappointing sales trend, recent auto sales results offer an interesting data-point but essentially paints a picture of general weakness not economic strength.