US May sales far outstrip forecasts

Fortuitous timing of the Memorial Day holiday helped drive US light vehicle sales far beyond forecasts. Autodata figures put the seasonally adjusted annualised rate of sales at 17.79 million units last month, considerably ahead of the 17.3-17.4 million rate most analysts expected as well as the 16.77 million SAAR recorded in May last year. The month's performance is the strongest that's been seen since late 2005/early 2006.