Wholesale values continued their year-over-year gains in November, but their upward movement is likely to become less steep in coming months in light of improving prior-year comparables, ADESA’s Tom Kontos reported Wednesday.

Sequentially, the wholesale market continued to be rather static during November, Kontos said, but this is expected to change.

He explained that “wholesale prices will likely follow their typical strengthening seasonal pattern on a month-over-month basis in December and into the first few months of 2011, reinforced by continued tight used-vehicle supply.”

Specifically, the average wholesale price for November climbed 1.9 percent year-over-year to $9,788. Sequentially, it moved ahead 0.2 percent.

Car prices ($8,556) were static from October and up 1.9 percent year-over-year, while trucks ($11,154) climbed 0.3 percent from the previous month and 2.5 percent from November 2009.

Showing the heftiest improvement from October were full-size cars, whose prices climbed 16.8 percent. Compared to November 2009, minivans showed the largest gain (up 9.5 percent).

“Among segments that have significant volume and number of model entries, minivans had particularly robust prices in November,” Kontos indicated.

Looking at trends among different consignor types, there was a 1.4-percent sequential dip for manufacturer-consigned prices, which were up 1.2 percent from November 2009.

Dealer consignment prices moved ahead 0.6 percent month-over-month while gaining 9.6 percent year-over-year, according to Kontos. As far as fleet/lease prices, these dipped 1.3 percent from October and climbed 3.8 percent year-over-year.

Continuing on, Kontos also pointed out that there was 32 days’ supply of auction inventory at the end of November, according to estimates from ADESA Analytical Services. At the end of November 2009, it was 37 days.

He said this is “an indication of continued tight supply.”

Offering some analysis from the retail side of the used market, Kontos said — citing CNW Research — that franchised dealers saw a drop of 9.6 percent in used sales from November 2009. Independent dealers showed a 3.4-percent gain.

Compared to October, franchised dealers’ used sales dipped 6.2 percent and independents experienced a 9.2-percent decline. Sharing more Autodata statistics, Kontos said the industry sold 28.1 percent more certified pre-owned vehicles in November than they did a year ago. CPO sales fell 10.6 percent from the prior month, though.

Finally, there was a 6-percent year-over-year hike in the consumer price index for used vehicles, Kontos noted, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The upward movement in that index last month “was considerably less of an increase than the double-digit increases recorded throughout most of this year.”