Auto Nation (AN) CEO Comments

One has to wonder about the state of lofty wall street expectations in regards to 2016/2017 new vehicle sales outlook when you have the CEO of Auto Nation (AN) making following comments:

“The fourth quarter industry sales environment was more push versus pull. As a consequence, we expect to report significant margin declines for the fourth quarter in both our new and used retail unit sales. We have begun, and will continue through the first quarter, to take the necessary steps to align our costs, inventory, and pricing strategy to adjust to the current market. In 2016, we expect industry new vehicle unit sales will continue to exceed 17 million.”

This reminds us of situation when Delta Airlines (DAL) CEO made comments about bubble in wide body airplanes which was initially disregarded by the street, followed by heavy put buying in Boeing (BA) in recent weeks which is now rewarding the bears. Now we are seeing the same kind of bearish put action in F and GM after those comments from AN.