{"id":390,"date":"2010-04-01T17:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T21:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=390"},"modified":"2018-08-20T15:43:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T19:43:32","slug":"best-economic-news-in-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/04\/01\/best-economic-news-in-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Best economic news in months"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">The major auto makers today announced sales results for the month of March (as compared to one year ago) and the data are very encouraging:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Nissan&#8230;up 43%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Toyota&#8230;up 41%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Ford&#8230;up 40%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Honda&#8230;up 22%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">GM&#8230;up 21%<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Hyundai&#8230;up 15%<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Some car companies posted drops so the overall rise was tempered slightly, but still strong, up 25% over one year ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Analysis:<\/strong> Folks, this is the strongest piece of economic data in many months.\u00a0 Yes, GDP was up strongly in the 4th Quarter, but most of that was the result of a one-time inventory re-stocking done by U.S. businesses in anticipation of a stronger Christmas 2009 than 2008.\u00a0 The primary reason that this data is so important is that cars are not typically purchased using cash, but with credit.\u00a0 Because interest payments are obligations that consumers have to pay, for consumers to be willing to take on additional debt means that they are getting more comfortable with the state of the economy.\u00a0 The car data also mean that credit markets for smaller sized debt-financed purchases are starting to thaw.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Importantly, the typical trend in a recession is that consumers will continue to drive their old cars and fix them as needed, rather than buy a new car.\u00a0 So the surge in car sales means that consumers must be seeing light at the end of the tunnel.\u00a0 Also, unlike the housing market, there are not great big tax-incentives to purchase cars.\u00a0 So this demand is especially robust.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Mitigating against too much enthusiasm is that the March auto manufacturing data are being compared to super depressed car sales figures of one year ago.\u00a0 Additionally, many auto makers are cranking up the purchase incentives.\u00a0 However, consumers do have free will and they clearly are starting to feel better about things, as indicated by their car purchases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Importance grade:<\/strong> 9; this figure is the first in many months that has caught my attention such that I am re-evaluating my recently bearish outlook on the economy.\u00a0 In the next several weeks I will be carefully scrutinizing data to see if there is an indication of economic movement upward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The major auto makers today announced sales results for the month of March (as compared to one year ago) and the data are very encouraging: Nissan&#8230;up 43% Toyota&#8230;up 41% Ford&#8230;up 40% Honda&#8230;up 22% GM&#8230;up 21% Hyundai&#8230;up 15% Some car companies posted drops so the overall rise was tempered slightly, but still strong, up 25% over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}