by Calculated Risk on 7/25/2023 06:07:00 PM

From WardsAuto: July U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales Tracking to 15.8-Million SAAR; Q3 Volume Forecast for 17% Increase (pay content).  Brief excerpt:

The initial outlook for Q3 is a 15.5 million-unit SAAR, a slight decline from Q2’s 15.6 million but above Q3-2022’s 13.3 million. However, as with July due to its atypical fifth weekend, there is upside to Q3, as well as the rest of the year, though that depends on continued steadiness in the economy, no major geopolitical disruptions and the impact from possible labor walkouts.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and Wards forecast for July (Red).

The Wards forecast of 15.8 million SAAR, would be up 0.7% from last month, and up 18.7% from a year ago.

Vehicle sales are usually a transmission mechanism for Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy, although far behind housing.  This time vehicle sales were more suppressed by supply chain issues and have picked up recently.