Via Bloomberg
I came across an interesting Bloomberg piece this week which took a look at the three largest car markets. Those big markets are in China, Europe and the US, which helpfully coincides with them being the world's three largest economies.
Why the car market is a key metric?
It gives a good indication on consumer confidence due to the large outlay. The car market is also a key metric to look at due to the knock on impact it has on a number of other industries:
- Insurance
- Second hand market
- Repairs
- Parts
- Accessories
- Insurance
- Legal accident claims
Poor Sales this year
Unsurprisingly the car market has been hit hard recently with some poor results for car sales from China. Europe and the US. Although the latest data from the car markets show some consumer confidence returning in April some of these this year has been results have been:
- the worst January since 2015
- the worst February since 2010
- the worst March since 2009
- the worst April sine 2013
With a number of people likely to start working from home more it will be interesting to see if there is more permanent decline in the car market as consumer behaviour shifts. The implication from this set of data is that a large number of related industries are going to feel the pinch going forward and this will weigh on GDP.
