“It’s a sea change from the business model that defined car
manufacturing for decades: Run plants at full tilt and then use
deep discounts to move the metal. In the US, automakers
customarily carried 60 to 100 days of inventory. These days,
manufacturers are targeting about half that much to lower overheads and keep prices high.

“We’ll never go back to the inventory levels that we were
at in the past,” GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra told
investors last year.

Her rival, Ford CEO Jim Farley, has said he doesn’t want to
pay for billions of dollars in inventory or offer discounts and
other incentives to offload it. Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan
Motor Co. have vowed to attempt the same strategy.

“You’re not going to see most manufacturers go back to
where it was three or four years ago,” Judy Wheeler, vice
president of US vehicle sales for Nissan, said in an interview. “We’ll keep that supply and demand in a level state.””

Asian stocks leaned slightly green overnight, with 9 of the 16 markets we track closed higher.

Same for Europe so far this morning, with 10 of the 19 bourses we follow trading up as I type.

US equity averages are down to start the session: Dow by 204 points (0.60%), SP500 down 0.55%, SP500 Equal Weight down 0.57%, Nasdaq 100 down 0.62%, Nasdaq Comp down 0.66%, Russell 2000 down 0.91%.

The VIX sits at 19.73, down 3.00%.

Oil futures are down 2.68%, gold’s down 0.33%, silver’s down 1.23%, copper futures are down 0.07% and the ag complex (DBA) is up 0.10%.

The 10-year treasury is down (yield up) and the dollar is down 0.06%.

Among our 36 core positions (excluding options hedges, cash and short-term bond ETF), 7 — led by AMD, Mexico equities, long-term treasury bonds, Brazil equities and Albemarle — are in the green so far this morning. The losers being led lower by Dutch Bros, oil services stocks, silver, Vietnam equities and Disney.