LIVE: US auto sales
Analysts forecast that sales rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17.15 million, according to Bloomberg.
Here's the latest:
- Ford: 8.9% (2.3% expected)
- Fiat Chrysler: -9.7% (-13% expected)
- Toyota: 14.9%
Sales rose less than forecast last month as Hurricane Harvey slowed activity in the areas that were affected. But they'd already been weak during 2017 after setting records in the previous seven years.
Analysts, however, see some improvement as the year winds down. For one, several cars that were salvaged by the hurricanes will be replaced, and that should boost sales numbers after the initial slowdown.
"We don't buy the idea that the vehicles sales would have kept falling absent the likely post-hurricane rebound," Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a preview. "In our view, the decline in sales this year is mostly a consequence of the unsustainable surge late last year, when a huge wave of incentive spending, led by Ford, drove sales up to a peak of 18.2M in December."
More to come ...
