Paul Ballew Year Quotations

I would describe it as a pretty solid year for the industry and one that is above our expectations that we had at the beginning part of the year.

Monetary policy can take a year, year and a half to rifle through the economy. Vehicle sales have held up somewhat better than what people have anticipated. You try to find balance ... When all is said and done, we don't anticipate the back end of this year to be a poor back end. We just continue to try to put forth what we think is the right balance. We're cautiously optimistic.

Underlying demand remains very strong. The first four months of the year certainly exceeds our forecasts and the forecasts of everyone else in the industry.

It appears the industry is running at a very strong rate, ... It's a very slight step down from the very blistering start we started the year with, but it's still a strong pace. There are legitimately headwinds, like higher energy prices and a general slowing of the economy. But we caution against overreacting to the headwinds.

We didn't see this so-called 'CNN effect,' ... We looked long and hard for it, but it was tough to quantify. It's probably only affecting sales on the margin. For the year it'll probably end up taking a little wind out of our sails.