Pardon the Sarcasm

ruggles/Wards I am astonished that the new “hot trend” in auto retail is thinking that a car deal should be accomplished in an hour or so. ...

Reflections on NADA Week 2015, San Francisco

Ruggles based on a column in Wards minor additions by Smitka There was a lot going on in San Francisco in January. The week began with the...

The Current State of Leasing and Residual Based Financing

Ruggles, February 2015 According to the most recent Manheim Market Report, “Lease originations exceeded 3.5 million for the first time sinc...

Oil Economics and the Auto Industry

by Ruggles - from my Auto Finance News column Drill Baby Drill has finally worked, but only because OPEC cooperated, at least temporarily...

Who is Number One?

Auto sales are not the only measure to assess an auto OEM's relative health. This piece from the Detroit Bureau lays it out: GM slid ...

Auto Finance Sub Prime Bubble?

I don't think so. For some reason, the New York times jumped on an Equifax report, cherry picked data to suit a sensationalistic agenda...

Janet Yellen's Dashboard

Once a quarter, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee take a thorough look at where the...

Transparency, and Some Retail Auto Industry History

Ruggles “Transparency” is one of the new buzz words in the retail auto industry these days. Dealers are urged to be transparent with their...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) threatens Small Business

Ruggles/Banks 14 Feb 2014 AFSA 2014 Working Paper The CFPB, created as a part of the sweeping Dodd - Frank Act, recently entered into a “co...

Federal Agency Should Stop Playing Guessing Games

David Ruggles Here I'm posting a few points I made in " Federal Agency Should Stop Playing Guessing Games " published February...

Did We Dodge a Bullet?

Ruggles, Auto Finance News Or did we just get President Obama’s Second Choice? Now that Larry Summers has taken himself out of the running f...

Can “Friction” Be Eliminated in the Buying/Selling Equation?

Ruggles in WARDS October 2013 At the recent J. D. Power event held in Las Vegas in October Scott Painter, TrueCar CEO, introduced a new theo...

GM, and Ford – Onward and Upward?

As of this writing, the stock price of General Motors closed at almost $37.00, while Ford closed at about $17.   Both announced strong seco...