Black Book didn’t officially declare arrival of the spring market, but analysts are quite intrigued about what’s going to happen at the auction during the next few days.

Black Book based its expectations after watching wholesale prices soften just 0.25% during the week that closed on Saturday, two days after Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter.

“The reduction in weekly depreciation that started a couple of weeks ago continued again last week, with the market reporting the lowest overall depreciation we have seen since the end of June 2022,” Black Book said in its latest installment of Market Insights released on Tuesday.

“In addition to sporty cars continuing their upward momentum, the compact crossover segment also moved into positive territory, increasing for the first time since early June of last year,” analysts continued in the report.

Looking closer at its latest data, Black Book indicated overall car segment values decreased 0.30% on a volume-weighted basis.

While eight of the nine car segments dropped in price, analysts points out only prestige luxury cars declined more than 1%, with those models sliding by 1.17%.

Prices for full-size cars dipped 0.14% lower after actually ticking up 0.06% two weeks ago, with Black Book acknowledging “the segment has few players left so it is very sensitive to the movements of only a few models.”

Also of note, values of those sporty cars moved higher for the third week in a row, edging up by 0.12%.

Meanwhile, Black Book’s volume-weighted data revealed overall truck segment values decreased 0.23% last week, an amount less than half what analysts discovered a week earlier.

Those previously mentioned compact crossovers moved up in value by 0.14%, stopped a streak of price declines dating back to early June. Analysts said the average decline for those vehicles during the past 33 weeks was 0.84%.

While technically depreciating, Black Book added that values for full-size trucks ticked down just 0.02%.

Conversely, values for compact vans dropped more noticeably, sliding by 1.34%.

Black Book wrapped up its latest update by noting the estimated average weekly sales rate increased to 47% last week.

“As we start off February, we’ve already seen sales rates and prices on some trucks and other segments increase from January,” Black Book said. “This is a positive sign that we may have hit the bottom of larger than normal declines and that the market may be on an upswing or rebound. This may still be too early to assume this, but there are several indicators out there showing this movement.

“For example, we are still seeing lower inventory volume at the auction, but the conversion rates are starting to increase from past weeks. As always, we will keep a close watch on the market and any developing trends. It will be interesting to see what sales rates do in the second week of February,” analysts went on to say.