Not since ’95 has this happened to used-car prices
Remember February 1995?
Bill Clinton was in his first term as president. TLC was topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart for most of the month, according to Billboard.com. UCLA was a couple months away of running the table in the NCAA Tournament.
And it was the last time used-car prices dropped from their January level.
Until last month, according to NADA Used Car Guide.
The division of J.D. Power said February wholesale prices of vehicles up to 8 years old increased sequentially every year from 1996 through 2015.
But last month, their prices fell close to 1 percent.
NADA Used Guide said in its latest Guidelines report that part of the decline was due to stronger than usual later-model volume gains. In fact, there was approximately a 20-percent sequential spike in auction volume for 2014 and 2015 model-year vehicles.
Jonathan Banks, executive analyst for NADA Used Car Guide, said in the analysis: “While it's normal for volume to grow over the period, the rise was four times larger than what occurred on a like-model age basis the past two years.”
With that price softness in February came a downward movement in NADA Used Car Guide’s seasonally adjusted used price index. It was 118.6 in February, down 3 percent month-over-month.
Not since November 2009 has any month-over-month decline been that large.
Year-over-year, the index fell 4 percent from last February’s reading.
And for that 1990s flashback, Auto Remarketing won't go into the diverging opinions on another Clinton in the White House. But let's be fair: TLC and UCLA are still remembered by many as the most dynastic of acronyms.