Total car sales tend to lead the overall economic cycle at the peak (see the chart below; double-click to enlarge). There are reasons proffered for this current downshift: people are holding on to their cars longer; millennials aren't buying cars. Yet varying explanations for falling car sales are produced every cycle. As you can see from the chart, it's a big decline.
Add in the rising cash rate from the Fed; an impending reversal of QE (quantitative easing) to QT (quantitative tightening) as the Fed starts to sell down its bloated holdings of long term-debt bought to provide stimulus over the last 7 years; and consumer weariness, and it's looks quite likely there will be a recession. When? Can't tell yet. But it does raise some question marks over the boom on Wall Street.
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