Joe Gumm interviews Jonathan Smoke on market outlook
Jonathan Smoke: Dealer Sentiment Index Shows Dealers Positive about Fourth Quarter
Friday December 22, 2017
Article Highlights
- The report also shows that franchises have had the best months of the year for the last three quarters and Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke says this is driving their optimism as they end the year and head into 2018.
- “The majority of dealers, both franchises and independents are positive about the next quarter as they head into 2018,” he says.
- The key behind the positive outlook it is sales, both new sales and used sales.
Joe Gumm sits down with Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke to discuss the fourth-quarter 2017 Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index. This is a new product from Cox Automotive, who issues the survey to a sample of franchises and independent auto dealers around the country, who express how they feel about the current retail auto sales and sales expectations for the next three months as “strong,” “average” or “weak”.
This is the second published survey, and dealers the survey found dealers are positive about the current marketplace for vehicles. The next survey will be in March 2018.
Current Marketplace for Vehicles
How would you characterize the overall sentiment of dealers today?
“Well the index is unique and I learned a long time ago that the best information about the future comes from people in the field. We talk to about 1,000 dealers every quarter to ask them what they are seeing. The fourth quarter did not look that different from the third quarter when you look at our dealer sentiment index – the high-level number we produce – it was up one point,” Smoke says.
Watch the full interview here›
For more from the Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index for fourth quarter 2017, get the full report at coxautoinc.com.