Chemicals & The Economy

October's US auto sales were as bad as expected. But even so, GM still managed a surprise. Once the undisputed market leader, its sales were truly awful, falling 45% versus October last year, as shown in the chart above. A sign of GM's own shock is that its inventory ballooned to 141 days, whilst Chrysler's was at 113 days. In mitigation, Mark LaNeve, a GM VP, described October as "probably the worst industry sales month in the post-World War 2 era". Chemical companies are also feeling real pain, as industry sales suffer along with the auto companies.