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While a bit higher than the year-ago reading, the latest auto-finance default rate included among the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices is on par with what the metric has been in October multiple times during the past five years. This week, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian released its data through October and reported the […] [Read More]

Adjusted third-quarter 2019 earnings results from Group 1 Automotive reflected an after-tax cost of approximately $9 million associated with Tropical Storm Imelda. Many of the company’s employees “had their lives devastated” as a result of the severe flooding, said Group 1 president and chief executive officer Earl Hesterberg during the company’s earnings call on Oct. […] [Read More]

According to data released back in June by the Pew Research Center, 81% of Americans now own smartphones. That’s up from just 35% Pew analysts discovered during their first survey of smartphone ownership conducted in 2011. Trends like that are having a significant impact on auto financing, as the recent findings from the J.D. Power […] [Read More]

“We continue to be bullish on used.” AutoNation chief executive officer and president Cheryl Miller was answering a question about the AutoNation USA used retail stores from a participant in AutoNation’s quarterly earnings conference call on Oct. 29. In the third-quarter earnings calls for AutoNation and other publicly traded dealer groups, things were looking bullish […] [Read More]

The combined same-store new-car sales for the six publicly traded dealer groups were fairly steady in the third quarter, falling a shade under 1% year-over-year, according to company filings and Cox Automotive estimates. But their used-car sales? Same-store sales were up almost 11%, according to the same data set. As such, “the trend in our […] [Read More]

Autumns have been atypical in the auction lanes in recent years with wholesale prices behaving in ways not usually seen. Well, this fall has returned to more traditional patterns, according to the latest Black Book Market Insights report. In fact, Black Book executive vice president of operations Anil Goyal said, “Truck segments declined more than […] [Read More]

Swapalease.com reported declines in approvals for vehicle-lease credit applicants during October on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. But site officials classified the movements in both instances as “modest.” The site indicated its October approval rate registered in at 68.8%. That’s down from the September rate of 72.9%, as well as the October 2018 reading […] [Read More]

The seasonal impact Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) expected to see when analysts assembled their latest prime and non-prime indices of the automotive asset-backed securities (ABS) market arrived in October. KBRA reported auto loan ABS credit performance weakened again in October with net loss and delinquency rates climbing in KBRA’s prime and non-prime indices. “The […] [Read More]

Subprime, near-prime and prime year-over-year origination growth all saw year-over-year declines for the first time since a six-quarter pullback that lasted from the third quarter of 2016 to the fourth quarter of 2017, according to a new report from TransUnion. But even with those declines, according to TransUnion’s Q3 2019 Industry Insights Report released on Wednesday, […] [Read More]

The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index did something in October that Cox Automotive analysts determined the wholesale market metric had not done in 33 months. For the first time since January 2017, the index posted a year-over-year decline. Manheim determined wholesale used vehicle prices (on a mix-, mileage- and seasonally adjusted basis) increased 0.29% month-over-month in […] [Read More]