Data Diary

December new motor vehicle sales

Posted on 25 January 2010

Behind the cardboard facade, I am making progress on developing this site.  In the meantime, analysis of the data that will flow into our leading indicators will be somewhat hackneyed.  Still…following are the charts ripped out of the ABS’s release for new car sales.

As a chart it looks pretty neat – all upward sloping and plenty of momentum. Even better, at face value, we look set to revisit the halcyon days of 2007. (Note this a the seasonally adjusted version that strips out the lumps like we had in June 2009 where the actual sales were ~103,000)  Question is how much of this recovery has been funded by our tax dollars – from the ABS commentary:

Following the Federal Government Budget in May 2009, the eligibility period for the Small Business and General Business Tax Break was extended to December 2009. The rebate level was also increased for small businesses, allowing eligible businesses to claim an increased tax deduction on the purchase of new motor vehicles.

It’d be reasonable to expect that at least some of this taxpayer generosity will act to “pull forward” demand.  So the real test comes in the first half of 2010…

(Also be interesting to slot this data against the consumer finance numbers for December – due out in February.  Is this an attempt to follow the debt funded recovery script that has worked so well over recent decades?)