Cash for Clunkers Hangover Socks Early September Sales, Edmunds.com Forecasts
September 03, 2009
The first two weeks of September will see an annualized sales rate of 8.4 million, as the industry suffers a hangover from the Cash for Clunkers summer party, pulling the rate for the entire month to under 9 million, Edmunds.com forecasts.
But the hangover should subside near month's end. "If September plays out like the last two weeks did, we're looking at a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) of sales of 8.4 million," said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, Ph.D. "But the most likely scenario is that the pace of improvement will pick up through the month."
During Cash for Clunkers, about 400,000 sales occurred earlier than they would have naturally without the program, and of those, about 60,000 would have occurred in September, said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell.
"But September sales will actually be down by over 100,000 units: the 60,000 that were pulled ahead and an additional 40,000-plus shoppers who we expect will be disappointed in the low inventory and the high prices that were unexpected consequences of the Cash for Clunkers program," she said.
At the same time, some residual Cash for Clunkers sales will be counted in September as the government changed the rules of the officially named Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) program to allow clunker traders to buy vehicles in transit or on order instead of those on dealer lots, where inventory dwindled quickly. About 30,000 sales will be Cash for Clunker deals that will be delivered and counted during early September with as many as 50,000 for the month.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:20 PM under Analysis | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
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