Autos Expose Economy’s Fragility As Credit-Compelled Car Sales Continue To Collapse

Jon Politics

The revival of the auto industry drove the factory sector out of recession; the flipside doesn’t look promising.
Federal Reserve data released last week on July industrial production offered little more than more of the same. Despite post-election optimism for a rebound in activity on the nation’s factory floors, the data reveal a continued throttling down in the growth rate to just over 2 percent compared with this time last year.
The main drag on activity — the auto sector — should come as no surprise to investors. Rather than rising by 0.2 percent over June as projected, manufacturing production contracted by 0.1 percent, marking the third decline in five months. Motor vehicles and parts production fell by 3.6 percent on the month, taking the year-over-year slide to five percent.
Blue Line: IP Manufacturing, Growth Y-o-Y%… Red Line: IP Manufacturing Ex-Motor Vehicles and Parts, Growth Y-o-Y%

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Aug 23, 2017.