In the wholesale market, prices are climbing from January, and a stronger percentage of vehicles are selling.

In fact, it has been 14 years since February wholesale vehicle prices have shown this large of a sequential gain.

But prices continue to come down from year-ago levels, though they still remain high.

That’s according to Cox Automotive’s analysis around the mid-month reading of its Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, which came in at 234.0

When adjusting for mix, mileage and seasonality, that’s up 4.1% from January, but 7.3% softer than the full month of February 2022.

Cox said the sequential gain is the highest for the month since February 2009, when prices climbed 4.4%.

Without adjustments, the month-over-month gain was 3.4% and the year-over-year decrease was 5.9%, according to Cox.

Looking at weekly movements in price, the company said the Manheim Market Report prices have climbed a total of 1.3% the past two weeks, which is a departure from what normally happens this month.

“Historically, prices are stable during the first two weeks of February, as the average price change for these weeks in the six years from 2014 through 2019 was a decline of 0.1%,” Cox said. “Over the first 15 days of February, MMR Retention, which is the average difference in price relative to current MMR, averaged 100.3%, which indicates that valuation models are below market prices.”

The rise in wholesale prices may be explained by the state of used inventory.

Franchised and independent dealers had a combined total of 2.21 million units of unsold used cars on their lots at the end of last month, Cox said in a separate report. At the end of December, they had 2.32 million and in January 2022, they had 2.56 million.

According to their data, dealers had 48 days’ supply of used inventory at the end of January, compared to 57 at the end of December at 61 a year earlier.

“The lower inventory levels are sending many dealers into the wholesale auction lanes to help restock the shelves, which has been pushing wholesale prices higher,” Cox said.

That may also explain the daily sales conversion rate so far in February, which has averaged 64.3%, according to Cox. That’s up from 58.9% in January.