All of the recent calm in global markets owes a lot to the U.S. consumer, with rising retail sales which helped on becoming the world's largest economy in June. Even so, we've got a very weak spot now and speaking about that we mean- slowing car sales, it's unclear now which market segment will pick up the slack. The U.S. consumption revelations show that car industry is at its peak now, which means it's in trouble.
As you can see on the charts from the pictures, U.S. retail sales represent 20% of overall spending, after groceries at 13%. Demand for cars has propped up the overall retail sales from 2014 to March 2016. But the pace of cars has slowed down in the first half of the year, and they could moderate further. We know that cars in U.S. have their seventh consecutive year of sales expansion, but looking at auto penetration rates based on cars, we see that are at their peak. This fear of reaching the peak helped stock prices for Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co. to soften this year. We don't know which retail segments have some plans ready, and will keep the consumers interested.
In conclusion we can say that even with all the negative expectations, there is a high hope for U.S. retail sales, because the consumer confidence has grown a lot. We consider that retail could save the car industry form a powerful crash.
