ATLANTA and SANTA MONICA, Calif. -

If dealers want to compare their November used-sales figures and have a more favorable assessment, the retail forecast from TrueCar’s data and analytics subsidiary, ALG, demonstrated how managers should look back a year ago rather than the previous month.

ALG projected on Tuesday that used-vehicle sales are expected to reach 3,095,166 units in November. Should the industry hit that figure, ALG indicated that retail performance would represent a 9% lift from a year ago but a 10% drop-off from October.

Over to the new-car market, ALG projected total new-vehicle sales will reach 1,399,639 units in November, down 3% from a year ago when adjusted for the same number of selling days. This month’s seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) for total light vehicle sales is an estimated 16.9 million units.

Excluding fleet sales, ALG expects U.S. retail deliveries of new cars and light trucks to be 1,193,462 units, a decrease of 2.6% from a year ago when adjusted for the same number of selling days.

“Economic fundamentals remain solid with November auto sales continuing to follow a similar trend as previous months in 2019 with a slight year-over-year decline,” said Oliver Strauss, Chief Economist at ALG, a subsidiary of TrueCar.

“Consumers are continuing to purchase vehicles yet at a more cautious rate than in previous years due to ongoing tariff and recession uncertainty,” Strauss continued in a news release.

Meanwhile, the analyst team at Cox Automotive shared its new-vehicle sales forecast for November on Tuesday, too. In this blog post, Cox Automotive projected the SAAR is forecast to finish near 16.9 million, up from last month’s strike-impacted 16.5 million level, but down slightly from the current 2019 year-to-date pace near 17.0 million.

Cox Automotive acknowledged total new-vehicle sales through October are down 1.4% compared to last year, and this negative trend is expected to continue. Sales volume, supported by an extra selling day, is expected to finish 0.4% lower compared to November of last year, according to Cox Automotive, which added that sales, however, will be up nearly 4% from October.

“One key factor will be incentives, which generally rise at the end of the year as OEMs try to push old inventory to make way for new products,” Cox Automotive said. “Black Friday and year-end sales promotions have become an important part of the sell-down strategy and are even more important in a downward moving retail market.

Analysts added another key factor for November’s results will be the recovery of General Motors sales in the wake of the long strike.

According to Cox Automotive senior economist Charlie Chesbrough: “We believe GM fleet activity, and likely some retail, was significantly lower in October by tens of thousands of units as factory closures disrupted deliveries. The question for the market this month is whether these sales were simply delayed, replaced or canceled.”

Cox Automotive went on to note that fleet activity is not only an important question for November sales, but also for the industry outlook going into 2020.

“Fleet sales are up significantly in 2019, as they were in 2018, and these gains have been supporting an otherwise declining new-car market,” analysts said in the blog post. “With significantly higher fleet deliveries over the last two years, further growth in 2020 will be challenging. However, without it, the vehicle market could fall significantly.

“Retail sales — both leasing and purchasing — are down this year, as they were in 2018. Increasing retail sales at this late stage of the current sales cycle also seems unlikely, particularly with vehicle prices and discounts already elevated,” Cox Automotive went on to say.