NEW YORK — Fitch Ratings recently revealed that U.S. prime auto delinquencies declined 33 percent on a year-over-year basis.

On a month-to-month basis, delinquencies inched higher just a bit, however, which Fitch attributes mostly to seasonal trends.

Fitch found that prime auto delinquencies increased one basis point to 0.57 percent from 0.56 percent in July. This figure is 33 percent lower than August of last year and is the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year drops.

Moreover, the company said that annualized net losses plummeted by 54 percent in August from a year earlier, although officials saw "marginal deterioration" from July's statistics.

Prime ANL also weakened in August, with losses up 6.2 percent to 0.80 percent in July over June's level. But even with the jump in losses, Fitch said the current ANL statistic is down 54 percent from 1.85 percent a year ago and 44 percent below the 1.52 percent at year-end 2009.

Meanwhile, subprime 60-plus day delinquencies declined in August to 3.11 percent, which is 5.8 percent lower than July and 30.1 percent lower from a year earlier. Like prime, subprime has shown 10 consecutive months of declines.

"With wholesale vehicle values likely to remain strong near-term, delinquencies have become the statistic to watch," pointed out Ben Tano, Fitch director. "The direction of both delinquencies and loss severities will be pivotal in the coming months as there is still significant strain on the U.S. economy."

While the company again pointed to the annual index improvements, it also pointed out that personal bankruptcies are up 8.9 percent over last year and new jobless claims increased.

Overall rating actions through August 2010 "improved notably," according to Fitch. There were 38 upgrades and one downgrade (compared with 10 upgrades and 20 downgrades for the same time frame in 2009.

"This is primarily due to improvements in underwriting in the 2009 and 2010 vintages and support of structural features present in transactions," officials said.

Fitch's prime auto loan indices total about $43.5 billion issued from 74 transactions. Fitch's subprime index covers 23 transactions totaling $6.5 billion.