Aug

6

How many market maker jobs do you figure were lost in the past five years since HFT market making came in heavy? Could it be 2,250 jobs? What is that at 200k a year per man? 450mm?

The wealth was merely transferred. Even if all was lost to the industry, which it wasn't, the industry would still be a couple billion ahead. It is absolutely amazing how technology has reduced labor costs.

On that note, I see that production plants for cars remain open this summer (an excuse for good labor reports) when every GM car lot has cars and light trucks parked in the fields next to the dealer. I assume some economist at GM decided labor or housing would pick up so they built too many pick up trucks. Yet GM is not selling.

I understand why the GM econ team had issues, with their pent up demand market call. They sold 600-700k pick ups– wait, no, that is 850k a year on average from 2000-07, as we must add Chevy + GMC as its same chassis so their sales dropped 35-40% from mean to this year. They were down over 50% at the nadir. FYI ford F-150 looks to be down 27% off the 2000-07 average of 850k per year to a low of 413,625 in 2009.

Pick up trucks are the best selling vehicle in USA and very easy to classify. Also the gist is, people use trucks to work and play. We have such a long way to go before we come back to full strength. All this talk of feds and bond spreads and government reports, we need a big pick up… truck.

** take my comments as optimistic as to how far we need to grow and improve simply to regain what has been lost, since the crash of 2008, not to mention all the improvements we shall see over the next decade.

(One can argue MPG and fuel costs for 2nd vehicle pick up's 20MPG average vs 30 for a small car. Ford is testing a F-150 with all aluminum body! F is attempting to shave 700 pounds off their trucks. That should get them 24MPG's Yet it's not to sell more trucks. It's to meet EPA Cafe standards for fleet MPG that is at some astronomical number by 2017. It's a costly bad joke.)

Feb

1    Ford F-Series    +16.9%    February 2012    47,273    +25.9
85,766    February 2011    37,549

2    Chevrolet Silverado    -1.3%    February 2012    32,297    +1.8
59,147    February 2011    31,728

3    Ram Trucks    +31.3%    February 2012    22,595    +21.2
40,504    February 2011    18,644

4    GMC Sierra    -6.7%    February 2012    11,306    -3.3
20,823    February 2011    11,696

5    Toyota Tacoma
+30.2%    February 2012    10,662    +35.3
19,560    February 2011    7,879

6    Toyota Tundra    -9.6%    February 2012    6,328    -9.7

July

Rank    YTD Sales    YTD vs. 2011
Year-Over-Year    Monthly Sales    vs. July 2011

1    Ford F-Series    +11.9%    July 2012    49,314    +0.4%
350,455    July 2011    49,104

2    Chevrolet Silverado    +3.5%    July 2012    28,972    -12.5%
223,480    July 2011    33,121

3    Ram Trucks    +22.8%    July 2012    23,824    +17.3%
162,405    July 2011    20,311

4    GMC Sierra    +4.8%    July 2012    11,105    -11.8%
84,050    July 2011    12,596

5    Toyota Tacoma
+27.0%    July 2012    11,350    +27.1%
78,503    July 2011    8,929

6    Toyota Tundra    +14.0%    July 2012    9,176


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search