Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Rick Nelson - Stephens.
Rick Nelson - Stephens
On October trends maybe has a length to September, both new and used cars as well as where your inventories is at today, I know you mentioned your 46 days supply at the end of the quarter, and when do you anticipate you will be fully stocked from an inventory standpoint?
Michael Kearney
Rick, this is Michael. I will answer that one. First part of that multi part question. October on the new side is marginally better than the rate that we saw in September. I would say used is up marginally, again over that, fixed operations is also up.
In terms of inventories on the new side, we are rebalancing our inventory, in terms of both make and model mix, trim level mix and unit numbers pretty much in generally across the board with all the manufacturers. Used car inventory was at the high number at the end of September, we are managing that inventory back down very quickly this month to our guidelines and well on our way there.
Rick Nelson - Stephens
Michael, can you also speak to geographic areas of strength and weakness and I guess comments on Florida would be particularly of interest?
Michael Kearney
In the quarter Florida participated along with the rest of the country of course in the Clunkers program which we had concentration of the brands down there that did very well for us. So Florida performed very well, the Mid Atlantic states did well, Texas performed again very strong in that program.
So, I would say most of the geographic regions performed in-line with the overall. We are not, I don’t want to say not concerned about where we are, but looking where we came from we feel much better about Florida than we did 12 months ago.
Rick Nelson - Stephens
Some of the dealers are talking about the price erosion that we’ve seen at auction the past couple of weeks. Do you take that says anything about demand for used car is potentially slowing?
Michael Kearney
Rick, it’s Michael again. I’ll answer that in two pieces, and you are correct on what you’re hearing. First, we saw an erosion of the sale rate at the auctions which then is almost always followed by erosion in the pricing. I think what we are seeing is that some of that is in fact seasonality, it’s happening a little bit later this year than it has in the past.
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