by Calculated Risk on 1/25/2023 02:48:00 PM

From WardsAuto: U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales to Rise 5th Straight Month in January; Q1 Forecast for 4% Gain (pay content).  Brief excerpt:

The bottom line is raw volume is growing, albeit slowly, with a forecast year-over-year gain in January, as well as the entire first quarter. Because of the chaos of the past three years, January’s upward spike to a 15.6 million-unit seasonally adjusted annual rate from December’s 13.4 million is more a result of disruption to typical year-end seasonal trends than a sudden surge in demand.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

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

The Wards forecast of 15.6 million SAAR, would be up 17% from last month, and up 3% from a year ago.

Vehicle sales are usually a transmission mechanism for Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy, far behind housing.  This time vehicle sales have been more suppressed by supply chain issues, but sales are probably now also being impacted by higher interest rates.