Well, Black Book spotted out a way to get the estimated average weekly sales rate down to near the lowest level seen in almost six months.

Just have the wholesale market post four consecutive weeks of price declines averaging greater than 0.84%.

According to the newest installment Market Insights, Black Book reported that overall wholesale values dropped another 0.93% during the week that closed on Saturday.

And analysts said the estimated average weekly sales rate dropped to 63% last week. That’s a level not registered since the end of February.

“Lower consumer demand has impacted buyer behavior at auctions around the country,” Black Book said in the report. “But this past week, sellers began to hold firm on floors, and the sales rate reflected this change in behavior.”

Black Book indicated prices in all nine car segments decreased last week, resulting in values for the overall segment falling by 0.87% on a volume-weighted basis.

Leading the way was the value decline for prestige luxury cars, which dropped another 1.34%.

And showing how much of a whipsaw the car business can be, check out what’s happening with compact cars.

Black Book said compact car values gave back another 1.22%, marking the largest single week decline for this segment since the week ending on Aug. 6 of last year. Prices for compact cars now have softened for eight consecutive weeks for an average weekly depreciation of 0.63%.

On a volume-weighted basis, analysts said truck segment values decreased slightly more than the overall market, sliding by 0.96%, as prices for all 13 truck segments dipped.

“Fuel prices have been falling but are still higher than this same time last year,” Black Book said.

Analysts noted full-size SUVs continue to post large week-over-week declines with full-size luxury SUVs dropping by 1.87% and standard full-size SUVs decreasing by 1.82%.

“Full-size vans are remaining in negative week-over-week territory, but the declines are lowest of all the truck segments,” Black Book said.

Black Book wrapped up its latest update with a few more observations from the lanes.

“The wholesale market last week remained consistent, as model year 2022 vehicles are continuing to slowly pop up through the lanes. Although there were some model-year 2022 vehicles seen, the majority of sales were still mostly made up of newer older model years (model-year 2018 though model-year 2021),” analysts said. “These vehicles had average conditions with average mileage.

“Smaller franchise dealers continued to dominate the lanes with few large independent dealers seen bidding,” they continued. “Inventory seemed to increase from weeks prior, while sales rates were seen to be lower than normal.

“Fuel prices for both gas and diesel are still decreasing, but that does not seem to help because we still saw a significant decrease in sales prices across all segments last week,” analysts went on to say.