Market Ups and Downs

🔼 Ups:

• Retail Sales: Six consecutive months of growth, with September up by 0.7%. So far, October is continuing the trend.
• Sector Leaders: Miscellaneous retailers, non-store retailers, and automotive and parts dealers show positive growth.
• Annual High-Performers: Food services, digital retailers, and automotive and parts dealers are leading the year-over-year growth.
• Inventory Rise: Supply of unsold new vehicles hits 2.21M units, a peak since spring 2021.
• CPO Bump: Certified Pre-Owned sales in September increased by nearly 14% YOY. CPO is outperforming the used vehicle market so far in 2023.
• Daunting Debts: Loan defaults are up versus 2022 overall.

🔽 Downs:

• Housing Dives: In September, existing home sales fell to their slowest pace since October 2010 (post-recession).
• Sector Stragglers: In September, clothing, electronics, and building materials stores declined.
• Used-Vehicle Sales: A 10% month-over-month drop in sales for September and a 4% dip YOY.
• Wholesale Dynamics: A 1.6% decrease in wholesale used-vehicle prices in the first half of October.
• New Slumps: The average price Americans paid for a new vehicle in September was down 3.4% YOY as higher inventory levels and increased incentives put downward pressure on pricing.