Bank loans have pretty attractive interest rates these days. Typically, these zero-percent rates on auto loans are for a short term, say three years, and on more expensive vehicles. People end up buying the car, but use a bank loan to do so. Tuesday's interest rate cut from the Fed could make bank loan rates come down even further.
Quotes about zero-percent (6 Quotes)
This is an exciting number, but it was warmer in November than usual. The warm weather is the equivalent of zero-percent financing on automobile sales. You're going to see this work itself off in months to come.
These numbers are essentially telling us that retail sales were artificially boosted by zero-percent financing. These numbers are not going to do anything to discourage the Fed from thinking that the balance of risk in the economy is toward weakness.
There are not so many people that can actually qualify for zero-percent financing, ... But the incentives get them into the dealership, where they might get something else.
It wouldn't be surprising if there was a little bit of a pullback in consumer spending in the first quarter as well because of the zero-percent financing in the fourth quarter, which makes for a very difficult comparison.
They say they are not increasing their incentive spending, but I have a hard time believing that, especially with the zero-percent financing. Chrysler probably has a lot of problems with inventories, and it's trying to solve them by price-cutting.