NEW YORK — According to Fitch Ratings, the performance of U.S. auto loan asset-backed securities is starting to show negative trends, which the company said is "typical" for this time of year.

While delinquencies and losses hit their lowest level in three years in June, the summer's seasonal pressures apparently finally manifested this past month as delinquencies and losses both rose.

Fitch reported that it expects auto loan ABS delinquencies and losses to continue climbing through the third quarter.

Fitch director Ben Tano explained, "Seasonal pressures, the poor state of the job market and overall U.S. economy will pressure auto loan ABS performance in the coming months. The dismal housing market and personal bankruptcies are also hurting the economy with filings up 13 percent through July from the same period last year."

However, even though there was been some weakness, Fitch said positive factors continue to support overall auto loan ABS collateral performance in an otherwise difficult economy. Officials said these positive factors contributed to positive rating actions taken last month.

The positive factors include:

—Tighter underwriting in more recent vintages

—Strong recovery rates on defaulted and repossessed vehicles despite recent slides in wholesale prices.

Basically, for the first time in six months, annualized net losses weakened in the prime portfolios. Losses were up 19.4 percent to 0.80 percent in July over June's level. However, despite the jump, the current ANL level remains well below that of a year ago, down 54 percent and down 50 percent from year-end 2009.

The increase in prime ANL follows three consecutive months of rising delinquency performance. Sixty-plus day prime delinquencies climbed 7.7 percent in July over the prior month to 0.56 percent. This followed a 2-percent increase from May to June. The rate was 27 percent below the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, subprime 60-plus-day delinquencies grew for the third consecutive month to 3.30 percent, which is 7.5 percent higher than in June, but 22.5 percent lower from the previous year. Basically, subprime ANL increased 32.3 percent in July month-over-month to 5.16 percent and were 26.9 percent below 2009, meaning the ninth consecutive month of annual declines.

Fitch officials indicated their outlook for prime and subprime auto loan ABS ratings performance remains stable for the year, thanks in large part to improvements in underwriting for the 2009 and 2010 vintages and support of structural features present in the transactions.

Fitch's prime auto loan indices total about $44.2 billion issued from 75 transactions, while the subprime index composes performance of 23 transactions totaling $7.3 billion.