Through the first two weeks of 2023, the economy and automobile market are showing mixed trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumer spending remains high, especially on vehicles. But sales are lagging due to high interest rates and prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve also seen auto loan rates move even higher so far this year and that corresponds to retail vehicle sales so far in January being off last year\u2019s pace.”<\/p>\nJonathan Smoke, Cox Automotive Chief Economist<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\u201cConsumer sentiment is up slightly and that\u2019s even with gas prices up slightly,\u201d said Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke. \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen auto loan rates move even higher so far this year and that corresponds to retail vehicle sales so far in January being off last year\u2019s pace. But that\u2019s principally being driven by softness in the new vehicle market. But both new and used has tighter supply relative to what we saw in December.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dealertrack data showed new retail sales were down 21 percent year over year. Used sales were down only 1 percent. The volume was up 7 percent for used vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rates continued to climb. For new vehicles, rates are at an average 8.3 percent. For used vehicles, the rate rose to 12.8 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smoke said he\u2019s not drawing any long-range conclusions from the data, due to January typically being a light sales month, other than the affordability crisis continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe market\u2019s biggest problem is affordability driven by the high level of interest rates,\u201d Smoke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumer sentiment increase 1.5 percent, according to Morning Consult, in the past week. Sentiment increased 2.6 percent in November and 4.3 percent in December. It is down 4.6 percent from last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n“The consumer closed out 2022, continuing to spend.\u201d<\/p>\nJonathan Smoke, Cox Automotive Chief Economist<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\u201cConsumer spending on credit and debit cards was up 28 percent year over year, according to Verisk. Spending has moved to services and travel away from goods, spending on vehicles was up a robust 34 percent year over year in the latest week of data,\u201d Smoke said. \u201cThe consumer closed out 2022, continuing to spend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unemployment throughout much of the country remains historically low, with 1.6 million on traditional benefits. That was 63,000 lower than before the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe share of people on unemployment benefits remains low, but it has been steadily increasing. We also see more stress in some areas of the country as states like New Jersey, Alaska, Minnesota, California and Montana sees higher shares.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through the first two weeks of 2023, the economy and automobile market are showing mixed trends. Consumer spending…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-industry","8":"category-independent","9":"cs-entry","10":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}