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GM's Channel Stuffing Catches Up With The Company: Dealer Backlogs Force Plant Shutdowns; Q3 GDP Cuts To Follow
A few days ago, JPM's Michael Feroli literally wrote off Q2 GDP: "Recent economic data have been dispiriting, and increasingly 2Q is being written off as a lost quarter in which no progress will be made in closing the output gap." The silver lining, however, according to Feroli was that Q3 GDP would jump on a surge in auto supplies and sales to fill the vacuum left in the post-Fukushima space: "Motor vehicle assemblies sank in April, particularly at the US plants of Japanese automakers, as supply lines for parts from Japan were interrupted. That, in turn, led to a steep drop in inventories of cars on dealer lots. As Japanese parts and supplies come back on line, automakers located in the US are planning to ramp up production to replenish lean inventories." Uhm, lean inventories? It seems Michael has not had a chance to actually see what inventories look like (unlike Zero Hedge readers). In fact as we demonstrated three weeks ago, GM dealer stuffing has hit an all time high, so we can attribute this oversight to Mr. Feroli's zeal to validate yet another projection hockeystick. Yet somehow we fail to see how this massively excess inventories situation will be amenable to prompt restocking. And now we are not the only ones. According to the AP, "General Motors plans to close two U.S. pickup truck plants for two weeks in July as sales of pickups begin to wane and trucks are backlogged on dealer lots, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, citing the auto maker." That sure doesn't sound to us like something that would happen to an industry that has just faced a "steep drop" in inventory.
As a reminder, here is what GM's record channel stuffed picture looks like:
We are happy to provide the JPM head economist with a free subscription to Zero Hedge if that will help in writing more accurate research reports. Because if he had actually seen this chart, he would know that as a result the Q3 GDP picture will be far worse than the consensus predicts.
To wit:
GM said shutdowns at its Flint, Mich., and Fort Wayne, Ind., factories have been scheduled for months to do maintenance on equipment and help to outfit the Flint plant for a third shift that's coming in August.
Company spokesman Tom Wickham wouldn't comment on the growing pickup inventory, but he said workers at the plants were told about the closures during the first quarter.
The plants make both the heavy-duty and regular versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. Together they built about 420,000 pickups last year. The shutdowns will cut production by more than 16,000 trucks.
GM no longer has an automatic two-week summer factory shutdown so it can switch from one model year to the next. But the company said nine of its 12 U.S. assembly plants will shut down for a time this summer.
We give the Wall Street lemming crew two weeks to realize what has been painfully obvious to all our readers months ago. And when that happens, the resultant Q3 GDP cut will make the disconnect between the economy and the Never Never Russell 2000 even more ridiculous (and make the need for QEx even more poignant).
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An accurate report from JPM is one which maximizes their profits.
Sorry Tyler, but this article is wildly off the mark.
Michael Feroli's analysis is perfectly accurate. There is a massive shortage of vehicles on dealer lots. The IHA Automotive estimates there are ~400,000 fewer vehicles in dealer inventory than what the current national sales pace would allow for.
When you bring up the 2-week Silverado factory shut-down, you're taking the outlier and erroneously anchoring your entire thesis around it. The truth is, dealers are starved for inventory. The Silverado story has utterly nothing to do with 3Q GDP estimates, nor the entire auto industry as a whole.
You've taken one data point, jammed it into the Fully Automated ZH Apocalypse Sausage Maker and cranked out nothing but a turd. Sorry.
More UAW/union/Obama Motors goons here on ZH. Massive shortages of Volts and the Cruze where the steering wheels fall off.
Go at least pretend to assemble 1 transmission before so you can go drink a quart of malt liquor and smoke a dube at lunch.
It seems the only people who can afford to buy a new vehicle these days are government employees who make 2X the private sector worker wages.
What is going to happen this summer when hundreds of thousands of teachers and government employees are laid off when the States pass their budgets for the coming fiscal year?
I suppose Apple product sales will be dropping as well.
As I see it, there are three major Components of inflation.
1) Managed Manipulation of the Money Supply (MMMS) by the Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, Exchange Stabilization Fund, etc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_Stabilization_Fund)
2) Investors and Speculators, who work for the folks in the #1 component.
3)Supply & Demand, You and Me.
In the end we know who is most responsible for our suffering. Those people in item #1 and some in #2. The big names in those two components are people who are well known to all of us. I think I know who the most scared people on the planet are.
I'm a bit perplexed.
Who now owns the Central Bank of Libya?
Does Gadaffy now own it since the US bombed his country?
Does Gadaffy now get to spend that 5 billion printed up for them by the Federal Reserve?
Are the Gadaffy tribesman out on a spending spree with the US Federal Reserve Notes they were able to take possession of in country?
http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/2011/04/federal-reserve-loaned-billions-to-libya-during-us-financial-crash/
OK. Lets sat the Gadaffy gang were able to take possession of $2 billion and are now out on an arms spending spree.
I sure wouldn't say no to a cut of that action.
Did you look at the other ZH post, the one with the chart showing all the channel stuffing? You know, the one where the dealers are buying a lot more cars than they're selling, at an accelerating pace? How does this 'data' square with IHS(?) Automotive's 'estimate'?
It doesn't. Someone isn't paying attention.
Yep. If anyone isn't sure about channel stuffing, just drive by your local dealer, and cast your eyes over. It's blatant.
What's really amazing is that GM would rather shut down plants rather than price their cars competitively. They're way overpriced compared to almost anything else.
From Back to School:
Dr. Phillip Barbay: ...now, not withstanding Mr. Mellon's input. The next question for us is where to build our factory?
Thornton Melon: how 'bout fantasyland?
Awww.
Ponzi indigestion
Nobody saw that coming.
Friend just leased new Silverado. The air conditioning didn't work when he drove it off the lot. Same GM, same crap. I laffed at him for being stupid.
"I laffed at him for being stupid."
I laughed too.
+1
GM/Obam Mugabe Motors is worse now.
You had me at 'leased new Silverado'. Why is everyone retarded?
I totally agree with you, the QE's where the only thing keeping the economy somewhat on the rails. But like anything the more you use it the less it works and everytime they used it it gave the impression of a good economy, but in the long run it made it more unstable.
Note to Buck Johnson and Ben Bernanke: the stock indices are NOT the economy.
That is all.
So bullish...they have to shut down the plants. And funny, as I was just listening to a cute little criminal syndicate Wall Street analyst who was bullish on GDP [3.1%] because of the inventory build out in automobiles to come "in the better second half."
It really makes you wonder sometimes if the banker class of folk have given up caviar and switched to putting paste fluoride on their crackers.
Given that any rational analysis would cost them their jobs, they probably partake of all sorts of chemical substances in order to dull the pain.
WILDLY bullish! More vehicles can be stuffed in the channel when they put them into the compactors as they roll out of the closed down factory doors.
Go Gubmint Motors GO!
Expect another round of tax credits for Volts and Chevy flex fuel vehicles. Free market kapitalism at its finest.
If pressed, he'll just state that he mistyped, and was really stating there was a steep drop in additional inventory on dealer lots. At that point only ZH readers will notice, or care.
all hopes are resting on the the new model that will be called 'the can kicker' and will debut in mumbai and bejing simultaneously in 2012.
I understand Tylers disconnect from reality on this one. I'll explain -
It's just like how QE will be replaced by Operation Twist, a revival of Cash for Clunkers will be remodeled in the form of Cash for Clingers, where the backlogged dealer inventory gets destroyed. This provides room for fresh vehicles that haven't been collecting dust and allows GM to make coitus with the US taxpayers prolapsed anal cavity as they will inject another several billion (against their will) into a company that makes a product no one wants.
This is pro GDP bro -BO
That's not true. No one wants them at the present price. If they were to discount them down to say........free I might be willing to take one or two off GMs hands. That is as long as the 3/4 ton comes equipped with the towing package, the deluxe urban cowboy interior and totally free maintenance for the first 10 years or 100,000 miles.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
I suppose the copper in the wiring might be worth something.
I will make sure, as POTUS, that this is part of my next stimulus package. Thank you for your input.
-BO
Now now, brother Cog,
My study of the Great Depression did clearly indicate that one of the things that was sought after during that time was automobiles. Once the plant shutdowns gets into full swing, there will truly be a supply constraints.
So if you get one for free, you let me know and I'll come pick it up...park it out in a field or something.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A union leader says Ford Motor Co. has set a date for closing its St. Paul plant.
Chairman Jim Eagle of United Auto Workers Local 879 says Ford is saying the plant’s last day will be Dec. 22.
Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans confirms to the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the plant closing would take place by year’s end, although she says the company hasn’t publicly disclosed the date.
The plant makes the Ranger pickup. Ford has confirmed that it will not sell the next generation of the small Ford Ranger pickup truck in North America.
That really sucks too. My next vehicle, a couple years from now, was going to be a Ranger. All this crying about energy and the SMALL TRUCK is what Ford dumps? I don't need a house on wheels like an F150 or Ram, I don't like the Silverado, and I WILL NOT buy a foreign truck.
That really sucks too. My next vehicle, a couple years from now, was going to be a Ranger. All this crying about energy and the SMALL TRUCK is what Ford dumps? I don't need a house on wheels like an F150 or Ram, I don't like the Silverado, and I WILL NOT buy a foreign truck.
Merely a weather related soft patch on the speed bump on the road to the summer of recovery. Bullish.
Yep, because everyone knows that entirely closing plants is gasoline for upside guidance for demand in the second half crowd.
So much demand Cdad, they have to close down the factories for their own safety of assembly line workers!
Go central planners, GO!
Cut em some slack. After all, they've got to compete with the (cough) Japanese.
At least we got a head start with 1/3 of Japan going radioactive
More and more good news, Dog. Our Summer of Recovery and inventory rebuilding and better second halfs has clearly kicked in:
http://www.fairfieldsuntimes.com/articles/2011/06/21/news/doc4e00e7380a090365498596.txt
Gannett Announces Newspaper Layoffs
GM gets to lay off workers. Damn right it is bullish for the corporation. Move those jobs overseas. GM cutting costs to raise profits.
Or maybe some more Cost Plus contracts for the contractors in Iraq and Afganistan. Watch your tax dollars at work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXjCtkymRQ&feature=related At 7:20 (Escalades, Hummers, Pickups, ect..)
All this talk about stuffing. Is it Thanksgiving already?
Thats right, and we are the turkeys :P
Didn't they try these tricks (i.e.) Channel stuffing- before BK? Nothing is new.
Same ol' Same ol' Shit from a horribly run company.
Instead of trying to grow the right way, S-L-O-W-L-Y and for legitimate reasons,
they try to speed up the process and do what Americans do best, create a Ponzi style business,
so they can quickly show how great/bitchin'/successful they are,
and they can give themselves a fat payday and buy more worthless 'stuff'.
Great. Nothing learned by these fools.
Hey LET THEM FAIL/WITHER to the very end next time.
How much do these union guys make now while they're laid off?? Will they even care about being laid off??
Hell its all just worthless fiat paper anyway, give em as much as they want who cares?
my dad worked in a GM engine making foundry in 60's-70's and it closed EVERY YEAR in July for 2 weeks to retool for the next years' models
Retooling! Thats gotta be it! AHH HA HA HA HAAAA HA HA HAAA!!!
You mean like dozing the place, tapping a Federal prairie restoration fund, and turning the place into a horse ranch for a St. Paul criminal syndicate banker?
I lived near Flint for most of my life. THEY HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE 2 WK SHUT DOWN. This is news to me "GM no longer has an automatic two-week summer factory shutdown so it can switch from one model year to the next."
I am guessing they stopped the shut down sometime in the last couple yrs or more likely that this is a half truth. It was pretty amazing to see the whole state take a vacation to the BEAUTIFUL lands of Northern Michigan (those Pure Michigan commercials are dead on).
The truck plant in Flint is one of the few good things going for the city. I cringe to think of how much worse the city (already with insane murder and arson rates) will get if that plant shuts down.
EVERYONE in FLINT drives a GM car but I have always thought they were horrible. This week I saw a passing Corvette and noticed how horrible the interior looked in this $60k car. Black plastic everywhere and no attection to detail. The styling has been appaling ever since Harley Earl left the company and nimbleness was sacraficed for UAW power.
While the Flint area will always be my true home even if I never go back, I am short GM stock because there is no upside. I truly will be donating any profits from this trade to an educational institution in Flint.
One last thing to this rambling post, GM's demise was very obvious during the boom before the bust if one traveled out of MI and compared the auto landscapes. As I said, everyone drives GM in Flint/Michigan but its not just that. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HOW MANY SUBURBANS AND H2s WERE BEING DRIVEN IN MICHIGAN. There is no doubt that MI was the expensive-soccer-mom-truck capital of the world. GM employees got to ignore and were immune to the realities of rising gas prices (those who were high enough to actually make decisions) bc not only did GM provide a new company car every 6mo but also paid for their gas for their hr commute (no one with a job actually lives in Flint/Detroit). As a high schooler at the time I would have discussions with my father on how THIS was going to end. We knew there were way too many people driving 40k+ cars and that their current product line was going to get crushed by the Japanese as soon as the next gas spike came but we knew there was nothing we could do. Today... the only thing to do is (sadly) stay short. I have long tried and wished to believe in this company that defines an entire state but, I wouldn't buy one.
F Flint and UAW parasites. Michigan was killed by liberalism. MI also voted for Mugabe in 2008.
A free Zero Hedge subscrpition? Fuck that, how do I get one of those?
I guess one man's lean is another man's stuffing
was feroli maybe refering to inventories at japanese automakers in the us - are thier inventories getting thin (us automakers have always generated piled-up massive inventories as i recall)
Channel stuffing is but one of the "green shoots" the supposed "Summer of pretend recovery" that is wilting instead of producing jobs, and GDP growth. ZH as always called out all the BS in real time long ago while CNBC,Reuters,and the AP were busy trying to pretend stocks were rising due to something other than QE and that QE was temporary.
Heck, they reported, the TBTFs had "paid back" the one time loans, UE was dropping and the FED was actually considering exit strategy.
But then....ummmm it snowed in winter got too hot in summer, and now of course Japan is to blame. Now things are gonna get better in H2, just you wait and see!
Hell things are going to shit too quickly for them to do the ol "lower expectaions and revise so theres always a beat" hustle, because they would have to lower estimates to double dip recession levels. Better to miss and blame it on Japan.
Which is why you will see selloffs in stocks that have reported. Peak earnings is already in the review mirror.
Again, I find myself concerned that criminal syndicate Wall Street analysts don't seem to know this, supporting the notion that there is a really raging fluoride problem in the financial services group.
Cocaine has fluoride?
Kick the can, baby. Kick it hard!
I have one major concern and that is what will the government try to do only in a covert manner. Even the government knows they can not directly give anymore to GM withour the general populace blowing a fuse including the sheepies.
Tyler - will you post similar dealer inventory charts for Ford and Chrysler? Thanks
Close the plants, park the unwanted cars in the factory lots, then offer them as low-rent housing to the displaced workers.
Saw that movie... it sucked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americathon
get ready boys and girls.
Wasn't his best work, but Ritter was a genius, yo.
Since the advent of youtube, I've even acquired a slight taste for Ritter's father's music.
The real stunners are the satirical predictions listed further down the page.
Wait for the Ally Alibi Auto liar loan to come very soon.
AAA, baby.
A new automated liar loan approval process involving no credible underwriting whatsoever.
Ally Bank, move that bus! (and Sierra, Suburban, Malibu...)
Is there an app for that?
Sure thing. Just be sure to read the Terms and Conditions.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e01-humancentipad
You know, Yes_Questions, the way things are going, our malinvestment and inability to do ANYTHING RIGHT as a country, this is quite possible.
It could easily turn out to be a better deal to sign a loan for a new car on the East Coast and drive it to LA and abandon it than to pay airfare and get scanned and groped for the flight.
Especially if there are "free month's worth of gas" promotions.
Sign, drive and dump.
A new strategic default.
Your apt description of perverse consumer demand I bet becomes true soon enough. Only difference: folks will be leaving the coasts and dumping inland.
As the FED devises new ways to evaporate non-performing pools of debt and the push to create more manufacturing jobs, especially for automobiles, materializes: yep, heartland auto graveyard.
What about all those pick ups that were destroyed in hurricanes and floods which will have to be replaced?
They still buy GM in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas .... !
Over the last 3 years, those silverados have been replaced by tundras... (arkansas).
Same day in Germany:
"Germans have to wait few months for their new cars"
Delivery times for a new car are around 5 months for most brands.Japanese or German does not really make a difference. The least waiting time is Opel (GM subsidary) and Fiat (Italian, owns Chrysler) with 1.8 months.
in German:
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article13442825/Deutsche-muessen-monatelan...
.
Farfromdriving
How is BMW doing? I know the North American or Global Sales Manager (a Brit) said BMW has all the cars they can sell (they cannot make enough). He also said if Lexus has production slowdowns due to earthquake damage that Lexus owners and BMW owners are not the same people. Sort of an insult at Lexus owners if you ask me.
I would take any FIAT over any Chrysler. Obam/Mugabe voters buy Chrysler and GM crap.
That backlog looks ripe for a taxpayer funded Cash4Clunkers buyer enhanced enticement program.
i have some buddies who are car salemen and they all tell me, they havent seen anyone looking for cars let alone buying any cars this month
I was in getting an oil change at the dealer and they do a great job. Ford/Lincoln. I hate dealersships but Ford/Lincoln have their act together.
The sales floor was dead.
Last week Ford lost a $2 billion law suit for closing dealerships in violation of their contract. Does anyone know if GM faces the same type law suit?
Was at local GMC dealer Monday for scheduled maintenance (110.000 moles) on truck. Was loyal GM buyer, pleased with product,but will not buy another truck/vehicle after Team 44's UAW bailout and GM equity/bond rip off. The dealer's back lot was CRAMMED with trucks & cars such that I do not ever recall seeing so many like that on the lot. Evidently it was channel stuffing as Tyler points out.
My 1994 Silverado 4x4 has 200,000+. The 1989 4x4 has 245,000. They both are in good condition (kinda). IF I can tell them what is, is, for a liar loan---- think I can get a new pickup? Sure would like to have a new red truck.
Excellent , let the tax payer bailout not end anymore. Stupidity reigns. I guess one has to got Harvard to write articles analysis with lack of common sense.
PS: Keep up the good work Tyler.
maybe i am missing something but gm is not a bell-weather for the usa car market especially with market share under 20% for automobiles...the japanese have been mind-share leaders since the 1980s and market share leaders since the 1990s...using gm as a basis for debunking an analyst's rosy glow is not convincing....
Maybe Feroli should have focused on Honda and Toyota instead of talking up GM.
Good POST!
Yen. ~
amasing...,JPM's Michael Feroli
its pure 100% bullshit propaganda.. noobody cares about facts.. just spin it bullish.. mass media became spin masters about 5-7 years ago..
so no wonder people/country/political system is so fucked up
alx
damm snow is screwng up everything.
Are GM Dealerships
Gaming Chevy Volt Tax Credit?
more here
Are GM Dealerships
Gaming Chevy Volt Tax Credit?
more here
Tyler - where did you get the data that said 584K GM units at end of May? Ward's Automotive Reports says it was 565K.