Mid-month look at wholesale vehicle price, supply movements
Summer temperatures have heated up, and so too, have wholesale values.
Used-car prices have started July up slightly from June on an adjusted basis and maintain a sizable premium over where they were ago.
That’s according to the mid-month reading of Cox Automotive’s Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, which came in at 221.5 at the halfway point of July.
When adjusting for mix, mileage and seasonality, wholesale vehicle values are up 0.7%. Compared to July 2021, prices halfway through the month are up 13.4%, Cox Automotive said in the analysis released Tuesday.
Unadjusted, the month-over-month change was a 2.2% decline, but still up 11.4% year-over-year, Cox said.
“Over the last two weeks, Manheim Market Report (MMR) prices saw higher-than-normal but decelerating declines. Over that time, the Three-Year-Old MMR Index, which represents the largest model-year cohort at auction, experienced a 1.5% cumulative decline,” the company said in the report.
“Over the first 15 days of July, MMR Retention, which is the average difference in price relative to current MMR, averaged 97.8%, which indicates that valuation models are ahead of market prices.”
The first half of July had a 46.7% daily sales conversion rate, which is down from 51.3% in June and lower than usual for the season, Cox said.
The aforementioned trends point to declining wholesale values in July’s second half.
That likely comes as a welcome sign for dealers. And does this: wholesale used-car supply (and retail used-car supply) is at “relative normal” levels so far this month.
Starting with wholesale, Cox said that based on Manheim sales and inventory data, there was 27 days supply as of July 15.
Through down three days from 2019 levels, it beats end-of-June levels by a day and is up six days from this time last year.
On the retail side, Cox said that based on vAuto data from July 11, there was 47 days’ supply. That’s off from 49 at the end of June, but beat year-ago levels by eight days and is steady with 2019 figures.