Lane watch: Cautious dealers triggering continued wholesale-price decline
During the same week independent dealers gathered in Las Vegas for NIADA’s annual convention, it appears managers didn’t feel like gambling in the auction lanes.
The latest installment of Market Insights from Black Book showed wholesale values declined another 0.42%, while the estimated average weekly sales rate decreased to 46% last week.
“With days to turn continuing to inch higher, auction sales rates are trending lower as dealers are being cautious about their purchases,” Black Book analysts said in the report released on Tuesday.
“We have yet to see retail listing prices follow the same path as wholesale, but typically retail lags wholesale by six-to-eight weeks, so the expectation is the retail market will begin to see prices declining soon, as well,” analysts continued.
Looking closer at cars, Black Book reported overall car-segment values dropped 0.44% on a volume-weighted basis.
Analysts noted that all but one of the nine car segments softened last week.
Drilling down even further, Black Book pointed out that prices for cars 0 to 2 years old as well as units 8 to 16 years old all dropped by 0.41%.
“Sporty car was the only segment to increase last week, but it was a minimal 0.05%,” analysts said. “The segment has been up and down in recent weeks, but overall, the segment is reporting stability with an average weekly change over the past month of 0.01%.”
Moving over to the truck department, Black Book’s volume-weighted data showed overall truck values decreased 0.41% last week, staying consistent with the prior week’s decline of 0.37%.
Perhaps interesting, the youngest and oldest trucks didn’t soften in value as much as the overall truck reading. Analysts pinpointed the drop for 0-to-2-year-old truck segments at 0.29%, while the downward movement for 8-to-16-year-old models was 0.24%.
No matter the age, Black Book said prices for all 13 truck segments decreased last week with full-size luxury crossover/SUVs leading the way with a drop of 0.68%.
“This is the largest single week decline for the segment since mid-January,” analysts said.
As the industry marches toward the close of the month and quarter, Black Book wrapped up its latest update with these perspectives.
“Lower conversion rates and more no-sales in the past few weeks seems to be the theme for the month of June,” analysts said. “All the truck segments have declined in the last two weeks while most car segments also saw a decline last week, with the exception of sporty cars. The larger wholesale sellers continue to do well, but the smaller sellers are struggling to move vehicles at the auction.
“As always, the Black Book team of analysts will keep their eyes on the market watching for developing trends and insights,” they went on to say.