Morningstar

September Auto Sales Suggest Market Leveling Out

GM's sales outpaced the industry while Ford suffered tough year-over-year sales.

Securities In This Article
Ford Motor Co
(F)
General Motors Co
(GM)

Automakers reported September U.S. light vehicle sales to final customers that show no reason to change our thesis of a U.S. market leveling out. Total sales were about 1.43 million, falling 0.7% year over year. Automotive News put the seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate, SAAR, at 17.74 million compared with 18.17 million in September 2015. We are not seeing signs of consumers acting fearful of buying a new vehicle nor evidence of consumers trading down to sedans over light-truck models. We expect gas prices to remain low, and that is very good news for the American automakers whose U.S. unit volumes are heavily skewed toward crossovers, SUVs, and pick-up trucks.

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About the Author

David Whiston, CFA, CPA, CFE

Strategist
More from Author

David Whiston, CFA, CPA, CFE, is a strategist, AM Industrials, for Morningstar*. He covers stocks in the automotive industry, including dealerships, parts manufacturers, and automakers. He has covered the automotive industry since joining Morningstar in 2007. He writes stock reports, ad hoc reports, stock analyst notes, and builds discounted cash flow models for each company covered. He also assesses their economic moat and makes frequent television and print media appearances in local, national, and international news outlets. Key stocks covered include GM, Ford, CarMax, and all six publicly traded franchise auto dealers, such as AutoNation and Penske Automotive Group.

Before joining Morningstar in 2007, Whiston spent four years in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ New York real estate audit practice and one year in its Chicago office working on real estate acquisition due diligence, gaining experience around assessing an asset’s cash flow.

Whiston holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration with concentrations in finance, economics, and organizational behavior from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, and he is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner.

In 2012, he ranked first in the specialty retailers and services industry in The Wall Street Journal’s annual “Best on the Street” analysts survey. He ranked first in the same industry in 2011 .

* Morningstar Research Services LLC (“Morningstar”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc

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