Black Book: Wholesale Market Ends Two-Week Widespread Slide, but 23 Segments Still Decline
After two consecutive weeks of wholesale value declines in all 24 segments it tracks, Black Book spotted the first segment increase since the week ending Aug. 5.
The lone segment whose wholesale value went up last week was the full-size crossover category (up $21), according to the latest "Beggs on the Used Car Market" video report from Black Book. And for the third straight time, there were drops in each of the 10 car segments.
Putting the overall used-market decline of the last two months into perspective, Black Book director of media relations Eric Lawrence shared some data that shows just how much softening has occurred.
Taking the past eight weeks into consideration and the 24 segments that Black Book tracks, there are 192 possible outcomes of weekly price changes, Lawrence explained.
He noted that 183 of those 192 changes were value declines, with just nine increases. If you take all 183 of the declines and add up the dollar value, it results in a sum of $7,557. If you do the same for the nine increases, the sum is just $55.
Evaluating the most recently completed week, Black Book managing editor Ricky Beggs said: “Looking at the numbers after a week of market analysis shows that the movement in values continues to soften as the market makes room for another model year of vehicles to hit the streets.”
Breaking it down by segment, cars were down $49, while trucks were off $42. Although this level of decline for cars was the heaviest it has been in eight weeks, there has been only one other time in the last 12 weeks where the decrease for cars was steeper than the decline for trucks, Beggs noted.
The premium sporty car segment showed the heaviest drop (down $125) and was somewhat of an outlier, with the other segments having less severe declines. The entry midsize segment had the most moderate softening (down $9).
Moving over to the truck side of the market, the most extreme downturn was found in the luxury SUV segment (down $136).
In some encouraging news for the truck arena, the declines for half of the truck segments were more moderate than the average dip of $42, Beggs indicated.
Furthermore, the declines for eight truck segments became less steep on a week-over-week basis.
Offering some more commentary, Beggs shared: “An interesting trend in the adjustments required this past week was the clean vehicle values required more adjustments and also larger declining amounts. There were 62-percent more clean values adjusted than average with the average adjustment amount being -$161 for clean condition and -$123 for average condition.
“ All this indicates that the premium we have been seeing for the really nice front line ready clean cars and trucks is easing and the gap to the average model value is closing somewhat,” he continued.
Beggs also pointed out that there were 1,467 vehicle adjustments each day on average, which is a bit higher than usual. However, it is quite a drop for the near-2,900 adjustments per day the week before.
“Is this a reflection of the comments from one of the Black Book survey personnel who said ‘there is no urgency to buy or sell’?” Beggs noted.
He added: “All said and done, there is no reason to be concerned about the current movement in the market. We are seeing a seasonal adjustment, but at a level that is less than most years, due to the overall limited volume of used vehicles available to the remarketing channels.”