In yet another unsurprising headline, The Wall Street Journal reports that GM will extend the typical summer shutdown at certain U.S. factories to deal with slumping sales and bloated inventory, a sign the industry’s hot streak is grinding to a halt.
The No. 1 U.S. auto maker in terms of sales will idle its Chevrolet Malibu factory near Kansas City for five weeks starting in late June, Vicky Hale, president of the United Auto Workers Local 31, said. Job cuts will be needed if GM is forced to slow assembly-line speeds when those workers return.
Additional downtime is also slated in Lordstown, Ohio, a small-car factory already stung by deep layoffs related to a pullback in demand for passenger cars. A GM spokesman declined to comment on specific plans.
GM enters the summer with a glut of unsold inventory after running production lines at relatively high rates to prepare for factory downtime related to plant upgrades. WardsAuto.com estimates GM’s production increased 2.9% over the first four months of 2017, even as the broader industry pulled back.
As a result, GM’s inventory spiked 43.5% at end of May compared with the prior year. It has nearly 1 million vehicles sitting on dealer lots, WardsAuto.com estimates, representing 101 days’ worth of supply, or 23.4% of total industry stock.
Here is what GM's auto inventory since emergency from bankruptcy looks like.
Will this time the GM inventory cycle indicator be different? With widespread operating shutdowns planned in the coming weeks, it better be, or else something is far more broken with the US consumer than even the paltry 0.7% GDP would suggest.
And as WolfStreet.com's Wold Richter explains below, it is not about to get any better.
Subprime Auto-Loan Backed Securities from 2015 on track to be Worst Ever.
Institutional investors that manage other people’s money grabbed subprime auto-loan backed securities because of their slightly higher yields. These bonds are backed by subprime auto loans that have been sliced and diced and repackaged and stamped with high credit ratings. But those issued in 2015 may end up the worst performing ever in the history of auto-loan securitizations, Fitch warned.
And then there are those issued in 2016. They haven’t had time to curdle.
The 2015 vintage that Fitch rates is now experiencing cumulative net losses projected to reach 15%, exceeding the peak loss rates during the Financial Crisis.
Fitch Ratings’ Auto Loan Annualized Net Loss Index shows the strong seasonality, with either May or June forming the low point each year and the winter months forming the peaks. A terrible trend took off in 2014. The winter peak last year occurred in November with a net annualized loss of 10.9%. The latest data point is for April, at 7.8%, up from 7.4% last year. The index peaked in February 2009 at 13.1%. The trend is pointing that way (via Fitch Ratings ABS):
Fitch analysts Hylton Heard and John Bella Jr. wrote in the report, cited by Bloomberg:
The 2015 vintage has been prone to high loss severity from a weaker wholesale market and little-to-no equity in loan contracts at default due to extended-term lending, a trend which was not as apparent in the recessionary vintages.
So let’s see.
Negative equity hits all-time record. The average negative equity in vehicles that were traded in for new vehicles during Q1 2017 has reached $5,195 per trade, the highest ever, according to Edmunds data, cited by AutoWeek. The percentage of trade-ins with negative equity has surged to 32.8%, also the highest ever! Average negative equity exceeded $4,000 in Q3 2013 and hasn’t looked back.
This negative equity in the trade is then rolled into the new loan, thus increasing the negative equity in that vehicle from the first second, which sends net losses soaring in the event of default.
Why is negative equity such a growing phenomenon? Because of the toxic trifecta in the auto industry, now happening.
Lengthening loan terms. The average new-vehicle loan term in Q1 2017 reached a record of 69 months, up from 64 months in 2011, according to Edmunds data. Terms between 73 and 84 months (7 years!) accounted for a record of 32.1% of all new-vehicle loans in Q4 2016, up from 29% a year earlier. Among used-vehicle loans, they accounted for 18%, up from 16% a year earlier. The value of a new vehicle declines sharply over the first few years. But the loan doesn’t amortize at this pace and doesn’t catch up with the dropping value of the vehicle until the later stages of the loan. As many consumers like to get a new vehicle every few years, these longer terms add to the negative equity at trade-in time.
Rising transaction prices. Vehicle prices have surged in general. And consumers buy more expensive models because low interest rates and longer loan terms make this possible by keeping the payments down.
Falling used-vehicle values. The seasonally adjusted Used Vehicle Price Index by J.D. Power Valuation Services (formerly NADA Used Car Guide) in May has declined for the 10th month in a row, now down over 13% from its peak in mid-2014 and at the lowest level since September 2010 [Used Vehicle Trade-in Values Sink, Hit New Vehicle Sales].
These factors, along with aggressive lending, propelled new vehicle sales to new records in 2015 and (barely) in 2016. But now the blowback has started. The net effect going forward translates into greater losses for lenders and investors in case of default after the car is repossessed and sold, and ultimately – now happening – lower sales for automakers.
Fitch isn’t alone in warning about soaring defaults and net losses of subprime auto-loan backed securities. Moody’s also warned. And S&P Global Ratings pointed out recently that net losses even on prime auto-loan backed securities have risen at the fastest pace since 2008.
For now, downgrades of subprime auto-loan backed securities are still modest. Ratings agencies cite structural enhancements, such as the slices that take the first loss and that have been retained by the lender. Investors that bought the highly rated slices might be spared initial losses. If losses continue to surge, even highly rated slices are starting to take losses.
But auto lenders that sold the subprime securities are starting to get hit. Fitch warns particularly about those that have sprung up since the Financial Crisis and have specialized in subprime auto loans, using looser underwriting standards. Lending by these weakly capitalized lenders has grown at magnificent rates in recent years. Some of those lenders have specialized in “deep-subprime” auto loans. And those lenders might be at risk.
And at least one of them, Santander Consumer USA, the top subprime auto lender in the US, verified income on only 8% of the loans, according to Moody’s. So here we go again. Read… Liar Loans Dog Subprime Auto-Loan-Backed Securities
via http://ift.tt/2rvNREZ Tyler Durden