by Calculated Risk on 8/01/2007 05:05:00 PM

From CNNMoney: GM, Ford Chrysler see July sales plunge worse than expected, allowing import brands to outsell domestics for first time.

Sales plunged worse than expected at U.S. automakers in July ... Overall sales were weaker than expected for both domestics and imports, as total sales fell 12.3 percent.

Experts and some automakers pointed to concerns about the housing markets and gasoline prices as weighing on American consumers who might have been considering a auto purchases.
...
Toyota Motor also posted a bigger than expected decline in sales, as it saw them drop 7.3 percent ... "The industry stumbled this month, on continued housing weakness," Jim Lentz, an executive vice president for [Toyota]'s U.S. sales unit said in a statement.

These weak sales number are probably a direct result of declining MEW. Although it appears MEW was still relatively strong in Q2, I expect equity extraction to decline significantly in the 2nd half of '07.